# Apache Config

Warning: This information is presented as a convenience, using another webserver than Evennia’s own is not directly supported and you are on your own if you want to do so. Evennia’s webserver works out of the box without any extra configuration and also runs in-process making sure to avoid caching race conditions. The browser web client will most likely not work (at least not without tweaking) on a third-party web server.

One reason for wanting to use an external webserver like Apache would be to act as a proxy in front of the Evennia webserver. Getting this working with TLS (encryption) requires some extra work covered at the end of this page.

Note that the Apache instructions below might be outdated. If something is not working right, or you use Evennia with a different server, please let us know. Also, if there is a particular Linux distro you would like covered, please let us know.

## `mod_wsgi` Setup

### Install `mod_wsgi`

- Fedora/RHEL - Apache HTTP Server and `mod_wsgi` are available in the standard package repositories for Fedora and RHEL:

      $ dnf install httpd mod_wsgi
      or
      $ yum install httpd mod_wsgi

- Ubuntu/Debian - Apache HTTP Server and `mod_wsgi` are available in the standard package repositories for Ubuntu and Debian:

      $ apt-get update
      $ apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi

### Copy and modify the VHOST

After `mod_wsgi` is installed, copy the `evennia/web/utils/evennia_wsgi_apache.conf` file to your apache2 vhosts/sites folder. On Debian/Ubuntu, this is `/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/`. Make your modifications after copying the file there.

Read the comments and change the paths to point to the appropriate locations within your setup.

### Restart/Reload Apache

You’ll then want to reload or restart apache2 after changing the configurations.

- Fedora/RHEL/Ubuntu

      $ systemctl restart httpd

- Ubuntu/Debian

      $ systemctl restart apache2

### Enjoy

With any luck, you’ll be able to point your browser at your domain or subdomain that you set up in your vhost and see the nifty default Evennia webpage. If not, read the hopefully informative error message and work from there. Questions may be directed to our Evennia Community site.

### A note on code reloading

If your `mod_wsgi` is set up to run on daemon mode (as will be the case by default on Debian and Ubuntu), you may tell `mod_wsgi` to reload by using the `touch` command on `evennia/game/web/utils/apache_wsgi.conf`. When `mod_wsgi` sees that the file modification time has changed, it will force a code reload. Any modifications to the code will not be propagated to the live instance of your site until reloaded.

If you are not running in daemon mode or want to force the issue, simply restart or reload apache2 to apply your changes.

### Further notes and hints:

If you get strange (and usually uninformative) `Permission denied` errors from Apache, make sure that your `evennia` directory is located in a place the webserver may actually access. For example, some Linux distributions may default to very restrictive access permissions on a user’s `/home` directory.

One user commented that they had to add the following to their Apache config to get things to work. Not confirmed, but worth trying if there are trouble.

    <Directory "/home/<yourname>/evennia/game/web">
                    Options +ExecCGI
                    Allow from all
    </Directory>

## `mod_proxy` and `mod_ssl` setup

Below are steps on running Evennia using a front-end proxy (Apache HTTP), `mod_proxy_http`, `mod_proxy_wstunnel`, and `mod_ssl`. `mod_proxy_http` and `mod_proxy_wstunnel` will simply be referred to as `mod_proxy` below.

### Install `mod_ssl`

- Fedora/RHEL - Apache HTTP Server and `mod_ssl` are available in the standard package repositories for Fedora and RHEL:

      $ dnf install httpd mod_ssl
      or
      $ yum install httpd mod_ssl

- Ubuntu/Debian - Apache HTTP Server and `mod_sslj`kl are installed together in the `apache2` package and available in the standard package repositories for Ubuntu and Debian. `mod_ssl` needs to be enabled after installation:

      $ apt-get update
      $ apt-get install apache2
      $ a2enmod ssl

### TLS proxy+websocket configuration

Below is a sample configuration for Evennia with a TLS-enabled http and websocket proxy.

#### Apache HTTP Server Configuration

    <VirtualHost *:80>
      # Always redirect to https/443
      ServerName mud.example.com
      Redirect / https://mud.example.com
    </VirtualHost>

    <VirtualHost *:443>
      ServerName mud.example.com

      SSLEngine On

      # Location of certificate and key
      SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/mud.example.com.crt
      SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/mud.example.com.key

      # Use a tool https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ to scan your set after setting up.
      SSLProtocol TLSv1.2
      SSLCipherSuite HIGH:!eNULL:!NULL:!aNULL

      # Proxy all websocket traffic to port 4002 in Evennia
      ProxyPass /ws ws://127.0.0.1:4002/
      ProxyPassReverse /ws ws://127.0.0.1:4002/

      # Proxy all HTTP traffic to port 4001 in Evennia
      ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:4001/
      ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:4001/

      # Configure separate logging for this Evennia proxy
      ErrorLog logs/evennia_error.log
      CustomLog logs/evennia_access.log combined
    </VirtualHost>

#### Evennia secure websocket configuration

There is a slight trick in setting up Evennia so websocket traffic is handled correctly by the proxy. You must set the `WEBSOCKET_CLIENT_URL` setting in your `mymud/server/conf/settings.py` file:

    WEBSOCKET_CLIENT_URL = "wss://external.example.com/ws"

The setting above is what the client’s browser will actually use. Note the use of `wss://` is because our client will be communicating over an encrypted connection (“wss” indicates websocket over SSL/TLS). Also, especially note the additional path `/ws` at the end of the URL. This is how Apache HTTP Server identifies that a particular request should be proxied to Evennia’s websocket port but this should be applicable also to other types of proxies (like nginx).