How to use EPrints with HTTPS

Add HTTPS Settings

For each ARCHIVEID.xml file, fill in the securehost and securepath entries.

Example:

<archive id="demo">
   ....
   <securehost>secure.mydomain.com</securehost>
   <securepath>/demo</securepath>
   ....
</archive>

The securehost is vhosted on the same server as your EPrints archive(s).

Secure requests will be of the form https://securehost/securepath.

securepath therefore differentiates requests from individual archives.

Generate Secure Config

$ bin/generate_apacheconf

As well as the usual apache configuration files, and depending on the version of EPrints, this will generate:

• an auto-secure.conf file in each archive's cfg directory (2.3.13)
• a series of auto-your.secure.host.conf files in the main cfg directory (2.3.11)

Set up Secure Host

Under Fedora Core 4, run:

$ yum install mod_ssl

This sets up a test SSL server.

Certificates

For a production system, you would need to provide the relevant certificates and tweak the mod_ssl config accordingly - see:

• Apache Module mod_ssl
• mod_ssl FAQ

Create a server.key on the EPrints server (remembering the passphrase you enter):

$ openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024

Create a certificate request:

$ openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr

The important thing when answering the questions is the CommonName: if ultimately the secure web address of your EPrints server is https://www.myeprints.com, then the CommonName value to enter is exactly www.myeprints.com.

Send the server.csr file to your Certificate Authority administrator, who should send you back a .cer file.

Copy server.key and the .cer file to the following locations:

/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/server.key
/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/eprints.cer

Modify /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf accordingly:

SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/eprints.cer
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/server.key

Include EPrints SSL config

Include each auto-secure.conf file generated by EPrints inside the Virtualhost directive.

On FC4, edit /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf:

<VirtualHost _default_:443>
   ....
   Include /opt/eprints2/archives/ARCHIVEID/cfg/auto-secure.conf
</VirtualHost>

If you have set up SSL certificates, you will be asked to enter your passphrase when you restart apache. To override this, see How can I get rid of the pass-phrase dialog at Apache startup time?.

Create Template for Secure Pages

Make a copy of template-en.xml:

$ cp template-en.xml template-secure-en.xml

In a multi-language archive, you would need to do this for each language-specific template.

It's a good idea to have a visual differentiation between secure and non-secure pages, e.g. edit template-secure-en.xml and add "(SECURE)" to the title of the page.

Some browsers will complain if images/CSS etc. embedded in a secure page are served by the non-secure host. To solve this, add a new entity to ArchiveConfig.pm/sub get_entities:

$entities{https_base_url} = "https://" . $archive->get_conf("securehost") . $archive->get_conf("securepath");

Now replace image/CSS base_urls with https_base_url.