Unable to configure Apache to serve static content for CherryPy app. What I am doing wrong?

Question

I have Apache 2.2.15 configured with Mod_Proxy and Mod_SSL and serving CherryPy web application on RHEL 6.3. The only thing I'm struggling with is getting Apache to serve the website's static content (*.js, *.css, *.jpg). Here is my VirtualHost entry...

<VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
ServerAdmin support@mydomain.com
ServerName mydomain.com
ProxyPreserveHost On
SSLProxyEngine On
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/mydomain

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/myserver.key
SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/mydomain_com.crt
SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/ssl/mydomain_com.ca-bundle

# this prevents the follow URL path from being proxied
ProxyPass static/ !

# setup the proxy
<Proxy *>
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Proxy>
ProxyPass / http://www.mydomain.com:8080/
ProxyPassReverse / http://www.mydomain.com:8080/
</VirtualHost>

For instance the path to my css file is the following...

/var/www/html/mydomain/static/style.css

Since I'm forcing the entire site to be in https when I navigate to

https://www.mydomain.com/static/style.css

or

http://www.mydomain.com/static/style.css

My browser tells me the page is not found (404). Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong?

EDIT: it appears that Apache is still proxying /static... I found this redirect when accessing the /static/style.css in my Apache access log...

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - - [17/Sep/2012:08:46:06 -0400] "GET /static/style.css HTTP/1.1" 301 337 "https://www.mydmain.com/Home/" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:10.0.7) Gecko/20120826 Firefox/10.0.7"

anyone know why that is happening?

Thanks in advance!

Andrew

Yes - with same result. I ended up using nginx. Got nginx configured pretty quickly... about 1 hr for ssl support and serving static content. However, still working to pass a nessus scan in order to be PCI compliant. Have a few errors remaining. — Andrew Kloos, Oct 05 '12 at 14:03
@AndrewKloos Are you able to figure out the issue? If yes, can you please post the answer. — Abdul Azeez, Aug 20 '13 at 06:21
@Abdul Azeez No I could not get apache to serve the static content. I ended up using nginx web server for my setup. If that interests you I could setup a tutorial for how I configured nginx with cherrypy. — Andrew Kloos, Aug 20 '13 at 12:32
@AndrewKloos Thanks for the reply. I added Alias for the static location before proxypass and it worked fine. Alias /portal/images/ /var/www/portal/images/ — Abdul Azeez, Aug 20 '13 at 12:45
@Abdul Azeez That's awesome! Unfortunately I don't have the setup to test your answer but if you give it as an answer I'll accept it. — Andrew Kloos, Aug 20 '13 at 15:11

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 21 '13 at 10:47

2

Try adding an alias for your static folder before ProxyPass. It worked like champ for me,

Alias /static/ /var/www/html/mydomain/static/

answered Aug 21 '13 at 10:47

Abdul Azeez

1,073
4
13
21

After adding Alias to my static folder, Apache started serving static files through http2 protocol. Before that only dynamic pages was served in http2 – Anton Belonovich Apr 10 '16 at 06:56

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 14 '12 at 13:08

If the static files are under the "main" source folder, I'd suggest telling CherryPy to serve the specific folder(s) for stylesheets, images, js etc

Personally I generate the config and then use that config when mounting the application like:

app = cherrypy.tree.mount(Root(), script_name="", config=somefile.get_config())

An example of static file serving with CherryPy.

The /css is the path that you use from within your templates or HTML.
The os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__) generates a path pointing to your index file (or some other script if your not starting quickstart() from within the index)
The above path is then followed by the relative path to your static content folder

File:

##somefile
def get_config():
    return {
        '/':
        {
            'tools.encode.on': True,
            'tools.encode.encoding': 'UTF-8'
        },
        '/css':
        {
            'tools.staticdir.on': True,
            'tools.staticdir.dir': os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'relative/path/to/your/css/folder'))
        },
        '/js':
        {
            'tools.staticdir.on': True,
            'tools.staticdir.dir': os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'relative/path/to/your/js/folder'))
        }
    }

I appreciate the answer but this doesn't answer my question. I'm trying to figure out why apache won't serve static content. — Andrew Kloos, Dec 17 '12 at 17:21

Unable to configure Apache to serve static content for CherryPy app. What I am doing wrong?

2 Answers2