Https3

Introduction

Setting up EPrints3 to work with https is a little tricky. There seems to be a few bugs to be worked round. This How To considers the following scenario:

Two repositories, repos1 and repos2, being served by virtual hosts repos1.FQDN:80 and repos2.FQDN:80

A single https domain, at eprints.FQDN:443 (so that only one certificate is needed). Secure pages for repos1 and repos2 will be accessed at eprints.FQDN:443/repos1 and eprints.FQDN:443/repos2 respectively.

This How To should work with EPrints 3.0 or 3.0.1. It was developed on Ubuntu Server 6.06, but should work on other systems without significant changes. The instructions can be adapted for an arbitrary number of repositories.

It is assumed that EPrints is installed in /opt/eprints3/.

Getting started

Install EPrints 3.x following the appropriate instructions.

Run bin/epadmin create twice to create repos1 and repos2.

Edit /opt/eprints3/archives/repos1/cfg/cfg.d/10_core.pl to read:

 $c->{host} = 'repos1.FQDN';
 $c->{port} = 80;
 $c->{aliases} = [];
 $c->{securehost} = 'eprints.FQDN';
 $c->{securepath} = '/repos1';

Make secure versions of the templates:

 cp /opt/eprints3/archives/repos1/cfg/lang/en/templates/default.xml /opt/eprints3/archives/repos1/cfg/lang/en/templates/secure.xml

Repeat these steps for repos2.

Generate the Apache configuration:

 /opt/eprints3/bin/generate_apacheconf

Add 'Include /opt/eprints3/cfg/apache.conf' to the Apache configuration (for Ubuntu / Debian, can replace everything in /etc/apache/sites-avaliable/default with 'Include /opt/eprints3/cfg/apache.conf'). Apache should now be correctly configured to serve the non-secure pages.

Secure Apache Configuration

Next, we want to configure Apache to serve the secure pages. However, generate_apacheconf hasn't created a secure.conf file in /opt/eprints3/cfg/ so this needs to be done manually. Some configuration has been generated for us in /opt/eprints3/archives/repos1/var/auto-secure.conf and /opt/eprints3/archives/repos2/var/auto-secure.conf, but there are some problems with this:

Some sections of the configuration overlap; The EPrints_ArchiveID and PerlSetVar EPrints_Secure variables have not been set. We'll therefore create our own configuration. Create a new file called cfg/secure.conf:

 #cfg/secure.conf:
 NameVirtualHost *:443
 <VirtualHost *:443>
   ServerAdmin itsupport@FQDN
   ServerName  eprints.FQDN
   
   SSLEngine On
   SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem
   
   ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
   
   # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
   # alert, emerg.
   LogLevel warn
   
   CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
   ServerSignature On
   
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/eprints"
   
   <Directory "/opt/eprints3/cgi/users">
     AuthName "User Area"
     AuthType "Basic"
     PerlAuthenHandler EPrints::Apache::Auth::authen
     PerlAuthzHandler EPrints::Apache::Auth::authz
     require valid-user
    
     SetHandler perl-script
     PerlHandler ModPerl::Registry
     PerlSendHeader Off
     Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
   </Directory>
   <Directory "/opt/eprints3/cgi/users/awstats">
     PerlSendHeader On
   </Directory>
   
   <Directory "/opt/eprints3/cgi">
     SetHandler perl-script
     PerlHandler ModPerl::Registry
     PerlSendHeader Off
     Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
   </Directory>
   
   PerlTransHandler EPrints::Apache::Rewrite
   
   Include /opt/eprints3/archives/repos1/var/manual-secure.conf 
   Include /opt/eprints3/archives/repos2/var/manual-secure.conf
 </VirtualHost>

Not the line 'DocumentRoot "/var/www/eprints"'. Create an index.html file in /var/www/eprints/ with a welcome message and links to the home pages of the repositories. Also note that we need to create a manual-secure.conf file for each repository. The contents of this file are as follows:

 #/opt/eprints3/archives/repos1s/var/manual-secure.conf
 
 <Location "/repos1">
   PerlSetVar EPrints_ArchiveID repos1
   PerlSetVar EPrints_Secure yes
   PerlLogHandler EPrints::Apache::LogHandler
 </Location>

 Alias /repos1/cgi/accounts/confirm /opt/eprints3/cgi/confirm
 Alias /repos1/cgi/accounts/register /opt/eprints3/cgi/register
 Alias /repos1/cgi/accounts/reset_password /opt/eprints3/cgi/reset_password
 Alias /repos1/cgi/accounts/set_password /opt/eprints3/cgi/set_password
 Alias /repos1/cgi/users/ /opt/eprints3/cgi/users/
 Alias /repos1/ /opt/eprints3/archives/publications/html/

For completeness, we'll also want to add the welcome page to http: Add the following lines to /opt/eprints3/cfg/apache.conf

 <VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName eprints.FQDN
   ServerAdmin itsupport@FQDN
   DocumentRoot "/var/www/eprints"
 </VirtualHost>

Add 'Include /opt/eprints3/cfg/secure.conf' to the Apache configuration.

Debian / Ubuntu specific instructions

, create a file called ssl in /etc/apache2/sites-available/ssl and add the line 'Include /opt/eprints3/cfg/secure.conf'. Remember to enable it with the command a2ensite ssl