Configure WildFly, Apache and websocket connections on Ubuntu 14.04

This tutorial assumes that you have already installed WildFly and you want to configure Apache as a proxy in front of WildFly, and you want to allow websocket connections. For a detailed guide on installing and configuring WildFly, see this post.

In this guide are going to install and configure Apache, mod_proxy and proxy_wstunnel. proxy_wstunnel is required if you want successfully connect to WildFly via websockets (thru Apache). Any attempt to connect via websockets without proxy_wstunnel will fail as the HTTP Upgrade headers will be removed from your request.

Apache install

First install Apache and the required mods:

sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-proxy-html
sudo a2enmod proxy_http
sudo a2enmod proxy_wstunnel
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Apache configuration

Now configure your VirtualHost. For simplicity we are going to update the 000-default.conf file. In this example the context root of the application is app. Update yours as needed.

vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

These two lines are required to proxy your main http connections

ProxyPass         /app  http://localhost:8080/pss
ProxyPassReverse  /app  http://localhost:8080/pss

These two lines will proxy your websocket connections

ProxyPass         /app/ws/  ws://localhost:8080/app/ws/
ProxyPassReverse  /app/ws/  ws://localhost:8080/app/ws/

Here is the full VirtualHost file, with the mod_proxy and proxy_wstunnel configuration highlighted:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.example.com
    ServerAlias example.com

    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com

    ProxyPass         /app  http://localhost:8080/pss
    ProxyPassReverse  /app  http://localhost:8080/pss
    ProxyPass         /app/ws/  ws://localhost:8080/app/ws/
    ProxyPassReverse  /app/ws/  ws://localhost:8080/app/ws/

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Reload Apache for the changes to take effect

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Java configuration

Make sure that the value you pass into your @ServerEndPoint annotation matches that in your Apache VirtualHost configuration.

@ServerEndpoint("/ws")
public class WebSocketEndpoint {
 
    private final Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(this.getClass().getName());
 
    @OnOpen
    public void onConnectionOpen(Session session) {
        logger.info("Connection opened");
    }
 
    @OnMessage
    public String onMessage(String message) {
        return "Message received";
    }
 
    @OnClose
    public void onConnectionClose(Session session) {
        logger.info("Connection closed");
    }
}

WildFly configuration

Make sure that you allow connections to your public interface from localhost (127.0.0.1) only. While this is not mandatory, leaving it open will allow connections to circumvent Apache.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="management">
        <inet-address value="0.0.0.0"/>
    </interface>
    <interface name="public">
        <inet-address value="${jboss.bind.address:127.0.0.1}"/>
    </interface>
    <interface name="unsecure">
        <inet-address value="${jboss.bind.address.unsecure:127.0.0.1}"/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

In WildFly websockets work out of the box, so no other configuration required. Here is the default undertow configuration, with the relevant parts highlighted.

<subsystem xmlns="urn:jboss:domain:undertow:1.2">
    <buffer-cache name="default"/>
    <server name="default-server">
        <http-listener name="default" socket-binding="http"/>
        <host name="default-host" alias="localhost">
            <location name="/" handler="welcome-content"/>
            <filter-ref name="server-header"/>
            <filter-ref name="x-powered-by-header"/>
        </host>
    </server>
    <servlet-container name="default">
        <jsp-config/>
        <websockets/>
    </servlet-container>
</subsystem>

You should now be able to deploy your websocket applications to WildFly and access them via Apache.