Bonita behind a reverse-proxy

Learn how to set up a reverse proxy to expose Bonita web interface publicly while keeping the backend safe.

Context

Bonitasoft does not support anymore having Bonita Runtime running on a dedicated Tomcat server on one side, and Bonita Engine running on a dedicated Tomcat server on the other side.

If you have to expose Bonita Runtime or a Bonita-developed application publicly, but legitimately want to protect any other resources behind your firewall, you should set up a software architecture similar to this one:

Tomcat behind a firewall with reverse proxy

where the Web Server serves as a reverse proxy, and where the Tomcat server hosts Bonita.

Using Apache 2 HTTP server (aka httpd)

Apache HTTP server proposes the following infrastructure, with optionally several Bonita backend servers:

exposing Bonita backend servers behind a firewall

Activate the 2 proxy modules by running the commands:

sudo a2enmod proxy
sudo a2enmod proxy_http

To be able to customize URL rewrite rules, activate the rewrite module by running the command:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

An example of Apache 2 HTTP server configuration that works with Bonita could be:

your_domain.conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    ServerName your_domain
    ServerAlias www.your_domain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/your_domain
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    RewriteEngine  on
    RewriteRule    "^(?!/bonita)(.*)$"  "/bonita$1" [R,L]
    RewriteRule    "^/(.*)"  "http://127.0.0.1:8080/$1" [P]

    ProxyRequests Off

    <Proxy *>
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
    </Proxy>

    ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:8080/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:8080/

    <Location />
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Location>

</VirtualHost>

Make sure to also configure Tomcat IP Valve for IP and protocol forwarding.

Read the complete Apache httpd documentation for detailed configuration capabilities.

Using NGINX

NGINX proposes the same functionality.

Read the official NGINX reverse proxy documentation