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Maskerading a complex url to a friendly url
I am working with a ticket software that provides a customer portal, but the url of the portal is way too complex for users to remember.
The software is JIRA Service Desk, by the way, and the feature to customize the url of the customer portal has not yet been given an ETA, and I do need to change the url that my customers will use to access the portal.
Let's say that the url now is http://it/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8;
I would like for my customers to only have to type http://it in the address bar of the browser and the url would resolve to the http://it/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8.
I did see something about IIS being able to do this with url rewrite but never did any configuration of the sort, and would like to ask for some help on that.
Does IIS have to be installed on the same server the software is?
I still am open to any easier way to achieve this rewrite.
Any help is appreciated.
Best regards,
Luis Carvalho
The software is JIRA Service Desk, by the way, and the feature to customize the url of the customer portal has not yet been given an ETA, and I do need to change the url that my customers will use to access the portal.
Let's say that the url now is http://it/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8;
I would like for my customers to only have to type http://it in the address bar of the browser and the url would resolve to the http://it/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8.
I did see something about IIS being able to do this with url rewrite but never did any configuration of the sort, and would like to ask for some help on that.
Does IIS have to be installed on the same server the software is?
I still am open to any easier way to achieve this rewrite.
Any help is appreciated.
Best regards,
Luis Carvalho
ASKER
Thank you for a fast reply Dan.
This rules out IIS then.
As far as I understood, the way things are, it is only possible using apache advanced configurations. Am I correct?
I have very limited knowledge about apache so my questions are:
-Should/could apache for windows be installed on the server with JIRA Service Desk?
-If so, what do I need to do to make it work alongside JIRA's apache tomcat?
-If not, what are my best options to achieve my goal?
Regards,
Luis Carvalho
This rules out IIS then.
As far as I understood, the way things are, it is only possible using apache advanced configurations. Am I correct?
I have very limited knowledge about apache so my questions are:
-Should/could apache for windows be installed on the server with JIRA Service Desk?
-If so, what do I need to do to make it work alongside JIRA's apache tomcat?
-If not, what are my best options to achieve my goal?
Regards,
Luis Carvalho
You don't need to install and additional web server (aka: IIS, Apache) because JIRA Service Desk installs its own Web Server. JIRA SD installs Apache Tomcat during the installation of the software which is most likely running inside an instance of the Apache Web server.
If you've read thru the articles above, you can see that most people trying to accomplish the same thing have run into many problems when trying to create a friendly URL for their JIRA SD instance.
As for your questions:
1. No you don't need to install and additional web server
2. see #1
3. based on what is posted in the forums, trying to URL Rewrite the JIRA SD URLs causes more problems than just giving out the original URL.
The only thing that may work is to setup a redirect from something to the JIRA SD URL. This will not hide the URL but users could only type something like:
http://sd.yourdomain.com
which would redirect to:
http://jirasd-server.yourdomain.com/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8
What is displayed when you enter just? http://jirads-server.yourdomain.com
Also, can you search for a file named server.xml and mention what the file's path is?
Dan
If you've read thru the articles above, you can see that most people trying to accomplish the same thing have run into many problems when trying to create a friendly URL for their JIRA SD instance.
As for your questions:
1. No you don't need to install and additional web server
2. see #1
3. based on what is posted in the forums, trying to URL Rewrite the JIRA SD URLs causes more problems than just giving out the original URL.
The only thing that may work is to setup a redirect from something to the JIRA SD URL. This will not hide the URL but users could only type something like:
http://sd.yourdomain.com
which would redirect to:
http://jirasd-server.yourdomain.com/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8
What is displayed when you enter just? http://jirads-server.yourdomain.com
Also, can you search for a file named server.xml and mention what the file's path is?
Dan
ASKER
When I enter http://jirads-server.yourdomain.com the JIRA software login page resolves, wich is not for customers.
If I enter http://jirasd-server.yourdomain.com/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8 I get the customers login page to the desired customer portal.
As for the file server.xml I couldnt find it.
What I could find that may be worth refering was, in the atlassian-jira folder, inside folder WEB-INF, the files urlrewrite.xml and web.xml.
Although I have opened a request on atlassian support to help me use this url-rewrite.xml in order to achieve my goal but they explained that this file wouldnt do the trick and that I needed to look outside jira.
Luis Carvalho
If I enter http://jirasd-server.yourdomain.com/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8 I get the customers login page to the desired customer portal.
As for the file server.xml I couldnt find it.
What I could find that may be worth refering was, in the atlassian-jira folder, inside folder WEB-INF, the files urlrewrite.xml and web.xml.
Although I have opened a request on atlassian support to help me use this url-rewrite.xml in order to achieve my goal but they explained that this file wouldnt do the trick and that I needed to look outside jira.
Luis Carvalho
ASKER
I managed to use a linux server with apache installed on it and created a vhost file like this:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName it.domain.com
ServerAlias it
ServerAlias 10.10.10.10.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule "^/(.*)" "http://it.domain.local/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8" [P]
ProxyPass / http://it.domain.local/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8 retry=0
ProxyPassReverse / http://it.domain.local/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8
</VirtualHost>
This way I managed to perform the redirect inside the corporate network.
Then, I added the name "it" to my public dns pointing to the apache machine, but when I navigate to the address http://it.domain.com the redirect aplies and resolves to "http://it.domain.local/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8" which presents the following:
Oops, you've found a dead link.
Go back to the previous page
Go to the Home Page
Atlassian JIRA Project Management Software (v7.1.2#71006)
About JIRA
Report a problem
Atlassian
This seems to be related to the way the page is being downloaded.
Am I missing something in the vhost config file?
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName it.domain.com
ServerAlias it
ServerAlias 10.10.10.10.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule "^/(.*)" "http://it.domain.local/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8" [P]
ProxyPass / http://it.domain.local/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8 retry=0
ProxyPassReverse / http://it.domain.local/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8
</VirtualHost>
This way I managed to perform the redirect inside the corporate network.
Then, I added the name "it" to my public dns pointing to the apache machine, but when I navigate to the address http://it.domain.com the redirect aplies and resolves to "http://it.domain.local/servicedesk/category/project/portal/8" which presents the following:
Oops, you've found a dead link.
Go back to the previous page
Go to the Home Page
Atlassian JIRA Project Management Software (v7.1.2#71006)
About JIRA
Report a problem
Atlassian
This seems to be related to the way the page is being downloaded.
Am I missing something in the vhost config file?
SOLUTION
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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Split points.
The JIRA Service Desk installation drops Apache Tomcat on the destination server. There is a reference to securing your server deployment and it calls out addressing Apache configurations.
Anyway, from what has been posted online, creating a friendly URL appears to not be supported. There are many Atlassian forum posts asking how to accomplish this and each one is met with an answer stating "not supported" or not easily accomplished.
Links:
1. https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/292243/friendly-url-for-service-desk
2. https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/38055343/url-for-servicedesk
Dan