Reverse proxy with Apache on Windows?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by Dave Winer.
Update: It worked, after a fresh install of Apache and a bit of fussing in the OPML Editor. 
0. I must use Windows, so please don't tell me I shouldn't use Windows. Thanks in advance.
1. I have at least two HTTP servers that I want to run on one box, one of them is Apache. The other is the OPML Editor. I may want to run Frontier as well (so I can serve Manila sites that are still in use).
2. If the colocation service allowed multiple IP addresses per machine, I would just use one for Apache and one for OPML and one for Frontier, and I'm done. Unfortunately the colo I'm using only allows a single IP address. So I must come up with a software solution.
3. Apache has a module that does a reverse proxy service, that allows you to route requests, by domain, to other servers. That's great, because I would just use Apache to do that. But last week I spent four hours farting around with it and couldn't get it working. It turns out there are undocumented switches somewhere, no one is exactly sure, and there are no docs (at least none that make any sense to me).
Update: Whenever I include the ProxyPass directive in a my conf file, I get this cryptic error dialog. Until I remove it, the server doesn't start up.
4. Now I'm pretty sure it can be done. Someone must know how to do it. I promise if I figure it out I will leave behind a clear how-to. So if anyone has a clue, please let me know. Scripting News readers are famous for knowing arcania like this. So please show your stuff! 
Update: I'm willing to use other HTTP software if its easier to set up reverse proxies, but I am not willing to use IIS. Last time I set one of those up it got horribly hacked. I think it's a target for a lot of kids out there, and you always end up with gremlins hanging out on your servers supporting warez and other strange shit. Rather not mess around with that.
By the way: I'm also looking for web app software I can run myself, hopefully simple to install, that takes a JPG and scales it down to 640-by-480 or even smaller. Ideally on Windows, again. Sigh. Even better would be someone else's service, but this is the kind of thing people usually don't want to do for you since it uses machine cycles.
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