Websites Archives - XpresServers

WordPress Permalinks: How to Manage Your Website’s URL Structure

In this article, we’ll explain what permalinks are and give you a tour of all the default permalink structures WordPress offers. Then, you’ll learn how to create custom ones in two ways.

Each page on your website has a unique URL that enables visitors to identify and access it directly. Ideally, you want these URLs to be as easy to read and type as possible. In technical terms, those unique URLs are known as permalinks.

When you use a Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress, it automatically generates URLs for your pages and posts based on the permalink structure you choose. However, it’s important to note that some options are more suitable for readability and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

What WordPress Permalinks Are

In a nutshell, WordPress permalinks are the unique URLs the platform sets for each of your posts and pages. Take these two permalinks, for example:

They both illustrate unique permalink structures. The first uses the blog post’s name as its slug, which is the segment of the URL that identifies a unique page. Instead of its name, the second example uses the post’s unique ID as its slug.

From a technical standpoint, both URLs work exactly the same. However, it’s easy to see that the first approach is much more user-friendly. Not only is it easier to remember, but it also tells visitors what the page is all about. This is known as a “pretty” (as opposed to “ugly”) permalink.

More importantly, using keywords that explain what your page is about can help search engines understand its purpose. In other words, they’re better from an SEO perspective. If you’re not using an optimized permalink structure, you’re leaving organic traffic on the table.

The 6 Types of Permalink Structures in WordPress (And Which One You Should Use)

Before we jump in, it’s important to note that if you’re building a new WordPress website, you should always set your favorite permalink structure as early as possible. Conventional wisdom suggests locking down your permalink structure within the first six months when your SEO is still in the growth stage.

If your website has been around for longer than that, you can still change your permalink structure. However, you may impact your search rankings if you don’t implement redirects to your new URLs.

With that in mind, let’s help you identify the best structure for your WordPress website.

1. Plain

We’ve already introduced this permalink structure above. Here’s another example to refresh your memory:

examplewebsite.com/?p=121

As its name implies, this structure is bare-bones. The slug is actually the designed page ID from your database. It doesn’t provide you with any information about the page you’re visiting. In most cases, you’ll want to use a structure that provides users (and search engines) with a bit more to go on.

2. Day and Name

As the name implies, this permalink structure uses your post or page’s name and the day of its publication as part of the URL. Here’s an example:

examplewebsite.dev/2022/08/25/sample-post/

The upside of this structure is that it tells your users how old the post is. In some cases, this can help them assess if it’s still relevant without having to hunt for a date in the text. You’ll often find news or magazine sites use this structure — essentially, any website creating time-specific content.

Dating your posts also has a downside. For example, imagine you have an excellent post that was published two years ago, and it’s considered a definitive source of information on a particular topic. Some readers might simply look at the date and think the advice is no longer relevant, regardless of whether that’s true or not.

To be clear, it’s always advisable to include the date of publication somewhere within your post, but there’s no compelling reason to add it as part of your URL.

3. Month and Name

This permalink structure is almost identical to the one we just covered. The only difference is that it doesn’t include the day of publication as part of your post’s URL:

examplewebsite.dev/2022/08/sample-post/

From a functional standpoint, we’re dealing with the same set of pros and cons as with the Day and Name structure. It can be nice for visitors to ascertain how old your post or page is at a glance, but it can also make some of your content look outdated.

Get Content Delivered Straight to Your Inbox

Subscribe to our blog and receive great content just like this delivered straight to your inbox.

4. Numeric

The Numeric permalink structure shares a lot of similarities with the Plain option. Let’s check out a URL using this setting so you can see it in action:

examplewebsite.com/archives/121

As with Plain permalinks, this setting uses your post’s ID as its slug, and it doesn’t provide users with any additional information. In this case, you also get a short permalink, but it comes with no other advantages, so it shouldn’t be your top option.

5. Post Name

Out of all the default WordPress permalink structures, this one is our favorite. It identifies your posts and pages according to their name, which makes for clean and memorable URLs, such as:

examplewebsite.com/your-best-post

The great thing is that you can name your post and pages any way you want and even customize the slugs if those titles get too long. As a rule of thumb, your slug should remain between three to five words long. That way, it’s still short enough for your visitors to remember, and search engines will also be able to easily identify what the post is about.

6. Custom Structure

If you’re not sold on any of the structures we’ve talked about so far, WordPress also enables you to build your own. For example, if you’re running a blog, you can set up individual categories for your roundups and reviews and include them in your links.

Here’s an example:

examplewebsite.com/top-lists/x-best-puppies-2018

In practice, WordPress provides you with ten structure tags that you can use to build custom permalinks. If you want to know what they are and how to use them, keep reading — we’ll cover all the basics in the next section.

2 Ways to Create Custom Permalinks

As we mentioned a minute ago, WordPress offers you a built-in method to create custom permalinks. However, you can also use plugins to achieve similar results if you want a bit more control over the procedure. Let’s talk about both methods.

1. Use WordPress’ Custom Structure Tags

WordPress enables you to use ten types of structure tags to create custom permalinks. Let’s take a minute to get to know them, then we’ll see them in practice:

Date Tags: This category includes %year%, %monthnum%, %day%, %hour%, %minute%, and %second%, and they work exactly as you expect them to. Adding any of these tags to your permalink structure will include those numbers within your URL.
Post ID and Name: These tags are %post_id% and %postname%, respectively. The former displays the unique ID for any of your posts or pages, while the second shows their full title.
Category and Author: You can add these options using the %category% and %author% tags, respectively.

To use any of these tags, you need to access your dashboard and go to the Settings > Permalinks tab. Once you’re in, you can choose any permalink structure you want out of the ones we talked about earlier.

If you want to create your own, select the Custom Structure option at the bottom of the list:

Now, all you have to do is mix and match the structure tags we talked about earlier.

For example, /%category/%post-name/ would result in this URL:

http://www.examplewebsite.com/top-lists/x-best-puppies-2017.

You can use as many tags as you want for your custom permalink structure. However, we recommend keeping things short. We also recommend that you avoid using dates, so that your content remains evergreen.

When you’re ready, remember to save your changes, and that’s it!

2. Use the Custom Permalinks Plugin

If you’ve been using WordPress for a while, you’ll know there are plugins for nearly every scenario you can imagine. Customizing permalinks is no exception. One option is the Permalink Manager plugin:

This tool enables you to customize your post and page’s permalink structure and change the URLs of any individual posts on a single screen.

To get started, install the plugin, activate it, then navigate to the Tools > Permalink Manager tab. Inside, you’ll find a list of all your posts and the option to tweak their permalinks:

The URL Editor tab section also includes tabs for your Pages and Media, which work just the same as the Posts section. When you’re done checking out these options, move over to the Permastructures tab. Here, you can set unique permalink structures for your posts, pages, and media:

As you can see, the plugin also uses WordPress’ default structure tags to help you build new permalinks. All you have to do is put them in the order you want and save your changes:

If you’re not happy with your new structures, you can always use the Restore to Default Permastructure button below each field. That’s pretty much all you need to know to start using the plugin.

Set Up Your WordPress Permalinks

A lot of people don’t pay any attention to the structure of their website’s URLs, which is a mistake. It may seem like a small detail, but using the right permalink structure can improve SEO rankings and make your website more user-friendly.

As a general rule of thumb, you want to avoid URLs that include long strings of numbers or unwieldy phrases. The best approach is often to use your post names as your default permalink structure and shorten them manually when necessary. If that’s not a good fit for your website, you can always create custom permalink structures using WordPress tags or a plugin.

Do More with DreamPress

DreamPress Plus and Pro users get access to Jetpack Professional (and 200+ premium themes) at no added cost!

Managed WordPress Hosting - DreamPress

Source link

Set Up a Reverse Proxy in an LXD Container to Host Multiple Websites

Updated Thursday, August 29, 2019 by Linode Contributed by Simos Xenitellis

Introduction

LXD (pronounced “Lex-Dee”) is a system container manager build on top of Linux Containers (LXC) supported by Canonical. The goal of LXD is to provide an experience similar to a virtual machine but through containerization rather than hardware virtualization. Compared to Docker for delivering applications, LXD offers nearly full operating-system functionality with additional features such as snapshots, live migrations, and storage management.

A reverse proxy is a server that sits between internal applications and external clients, forwarding client requests to the appropriate server. While many common applications, such as Node.js, are able to function as servers on their own, they may lack a number of advanced load balancing, security, and acceleration features.

This guide explains the creation of a reverse proxy in an LXD container in order to host multiple websites, each in their own additional containers. You will utilize NGINX and Apache web servers, while also relying on NGINX as a reverse proxy.

Please refer to the following diagram to understand the reverse proxy created in this guide.

Diagram of LXD reverse proxy and web servers

In this guide you will:

Note
For simplicity, the term container is used throughout this guide to describe the LXD system containers.

Before You Begin

Complete A Beginner’s Guide to LXD: Setting Up an Apache Web Server In a Container. The guide instructs you to create a container called web with the Apache web server for testing purposes. Remove this container by running the following commands.
```
lxc stop web
lxc delete web
```
Note
This guide will use the hostnames apache1.example.com and nginx1.example.com for the two example websites. Replace these names with hostnames you own and setup their DNS entries to point them to the IP address of the server you created. For help with DNS see our DNS Manager Guide.

Creating the Containers

Create two containers called apache1 and nginx1, one with the Apache web server and another with the NGINX web server, respectively. For any additional websites, you may create new containers with your chosen web server software.
```
lxc launch ubuntu:18.04 apache1
lxc launch ubuntu:18.04 nginx1
```
Create the proxy container for the reverse proxy.
```
lxc launch ubuntu:18.04 proxy
```
List the containers with the list command.
```
lxc list
```

The output will look similar to the following.

  
+---------+---------+---------------------+-----------------------------------------------+------------+-----------+
|  NAME   |  STATE  |        IPV4         |                     IPV6                      |    TYPE    | SNAPSHOTS |
+---------+---------+---------------------+-----------------------------------------------+------------+-----------+
| apache1 | RUNNING | 10.10.10.204 (eth0) | fd42:67a4:b462:6ae2:216:3eff:fe01:1a4e (eth0) | PERSISTENT |           |
+---------+---------+---------------------+-----------------------------------------------+------------+-----------+
| nginx1  | RUNNING | 10.10.10.251 (eth0) | fd42:67a4:b462:6ae2:216:3eff:febd:67e3 (eth0) | PERSISTENT |           |
+---------+---------+---------------------+-----------------------------------------------+------------+-----------+
| proxy   | RUNNING | 10.10.10.28 (eth0)  | fd42:67a4:b462:6ae2:216:3eff:fe00:252e (eth0) | PERSISTENT |           |
+---------+---------+---------------------+-----------------------------------------------+------------+-----------+

There are three containers, all in the RUNNING state – each with their own private IP address. Take note of the IP addresses (both IPv4 and IPv6) for the container proxy. You will need them to configure the proxy container in a later section.

Now that the containers have been created, the following steps will detail how to set up the web server software in the apache1 and nginx1 containers, and the proxy container so that the web servers are accessible from the internet.

Configuring the Apache Web Server Container

When using a reverse proxy in front of a web server, the web server does not know the IP addresses of visitors. The web server only sees the IP address of the reverse proxy. However, each web server has a way to identify the real remote IP address of a visitor. For Apache, this is performed with the Remote IP Apache module. For the module to work, the reverse proxy must be configured to pass the remote IP address’ information.

Start a shell in the apache1 container.

lxc exec apache1 -- sudo --user ubuntu --login

Update the package list in the apache1 container.
```
sudo apt update
```
Install the package apache2 in the container.
```
sudo apt install -y apache2
```
Create the file /etc/apache2/conf-available/remoteip.conf.
remoteip.conf
1 2
RemoteIPHeader X-Real-IP RemoteIPTrustedProxy 10.10.10.28 fd42:67a4:b462:6ae2:216:3eff:fe00:252e
You can use the nano text editor by running the command sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf-available/remoteip.conf. Note, these are the IP addresses of the proxy container shown earlier, for both IPv4 and IPv6. Replace these with the IPs from your lxc list output.
Note
Instead of specifying the IP addresses, you can also use the hostname proxy.lxd. However, the RemoteIP Apache module is peculiar when using the hostname and will use only one of the two IP addresses (either IPv4 or IPv6), which means the Apache web server will not know the real source IP address for some connections. By listing explicitly both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, you can be certain that RemoteIP will successfully accept the source IP information from all connections of the reverse proxy.

Enable the new remoteip.conf configuration.

sudo a2enconf remoteip

  
Enabling conf remoteip.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
systemctl reload apache2

Enable the remoteip Apache module.

sudo a2enmod remoteip

  
Enabling module remoteip.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
systemctl restart apache2

Edit the default web page for Apache to make a reference that it runs inside a LXD container.
```
sudo nano /var/www/html/index.html
```
Change the line “It works!” (line number 224) to “It works inside a LXD container!” Save and exit.
Restart the Apache web server.
```
sudo systemctl reload apache2
```
Exit back to the host.
```
exit
```

You have created and configured the Apache web server, but the server is not yet accessible from the Internet. It will become accessible after you configure the proxy container in a later section.

Creating the NGINX Web Server Container

Like Apache, NGINX does not know the IP addresses of visitors when using a reverse proxy in front of a web server. It only sees the IP address of the reverse proxy instead. Each NGINX web server software can identify the real remote IP address of a visitor with the Real IP module. For the module to work, the reverse proxy must be configured accordingly to pass the information regarding the remote IP addresses.

Start a shell in the nginx1 container.

lxc exec nginx1 -- sudo --user ubuntu --login

Update the package list in the nginx1 container.
```
sudo apt update
```
Install NGINX in the container.
```
sudo apt install -y nginx
```
Create the file /etc/nginx/conf.d/real-ip.conf.
real-ip.conf
1 2
real_ip_header X-Real-IP; set_real_ip_from proxy.lxd;
You can use the nano text editor by running the command sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/real-ip.conf.
Note
You have specified the hostname of the reverse proxy, proxy.lxd. Each LXD container gets automatically a hostname, which is the name of the container plus the suffix .lxd. By specifying the set_real_ip_from field with proxy.lxd, you are instructing the NGINX web server to accept the real IP address information for each connection, as long as that connection originates from proxy.lxd. The real IP address information will be found in the HTTP header X-Real-IP in each connection.
Edit the default web page for NGINX to make a reference that it runs inside a LXD container.
```
sudo nano /var/www/html/index.nginx-debian.html
```
Change the line “Welcome to nginx!” (line number 14) to “Welcome to nginx running in a LXD system container!”. Save and exit.
Restart the NGINX web server.
```
sudo systemctl reload nginx
```
Exit back to the host.
```
exit
```

You have created and configured the NGINX web server, but the server is not accessible yet from the Internet. It will become accessible after you configure the proxy container in the next section.

Setting up the Reverse Proxy

In this section you will configure the container proxy. You will install NGINX and set it up as a reverse proxy, then add the appropriate LXD proxy device in order to expose both ports 80 and 443 to the internet.

Add LXD proxy devices to redirect connections from the internet to ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) on the server to the respective ports at the proxy container.

lxc config device add proxy myport80 proxy listen=tcp:0.0.0.0:80 connect=tcp:127.0.0.1:80 proxy_protocol=true
lxc config device add proxy myport443 proxy listen=tcp:0.0.0.0:443 connect=tcp:127.0.0.1:443 proxy_protocol=true

  
Device myport80 added to proxy
Device myport443 added to proxy

The lxc config device add command takes as arguments:

Argument	Explanation
`proxy`	The name of the container.
`myport80`	A name for this proxy device.
`proxy`	The type of the LXD device (LXD proxy device).
`listen=tcp:0.0.0.0:80`	The proxy device will listen on the host (default) on port 80, protocol TCP, on all interfaces.
`connect=tcp:127.0.0.1:80`	The proxy device will connect to the container on port 80, protocol TCP, on the loopback interface. In previous versions of LXD you could have specified `localhost` here. However, in LXD 3.13 or newer, you can only specify IP addresses.
`proxy_protocol=true`	Request to enable the PROXY protocol so that the reverse proxy will get the originating IP address from the proxy device.

Note
If you want to remove a proxy device, use lxc config device remove. If you want to remove the above device myport80, run the following command:
lxc config device remove proxy myport80
Where proxy is the name of the container, and myport80 is the name of the device.

Start a shell in the proxy container.

lxc exec proxy -- sudo --user ubuntu --login

Update the package list.
```
sudo apt update
```
Install NGINX in the container.
```
sudo apt install -y nginx
```
Logout from the container.
```
logout
```

Direct Traffic to the Apache Web Server From the Reverse Proxy

The reverse proxy container is running and the NGINX package has been installed. To work as a reverse proxy, add the appropriate website configuration so that NGINX can identify (with server_name below) the appropriate hostname, and then pass (with proxy_pass below) the connection to the appropriate LXD container.

Start a shell in the proxy container.

lxc exec proxy -- sudo --user ubuntu --login

Create the file apache1.example.com in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ for the configuration of your first website.

apache1.example.com

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
server {
        listen 80 proxy_protocol;
        listen [::]:80 proxy_protocol;

        server_name apache1.example.com;

        location / {
                proxy_set_header Host $host;
                proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                proxy_pass http://apache1.lxd;
        }

        real_ip_header proxy_protocol;
        set_real_ip_from 127.0.0.1;
}

You can run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/apache1.example.com to open up a text editor and add the configuration. Note, in this case you only need to edit the server_name to be the hostname of the website.

Enable the website.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/apache1.example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart the NGINX reverse proxy. By restarting the service, NGINX will read and apply the new site instructions just added to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled.
```
sudo systemctl reload nginx
```
Exit the proxy container and return back to the host.
```
logout
```
From your local computer, visit the URL of your website with your web browser. You should see the default Apache page:
Note
If you look at the Apache access.log file (default file /var/log/apache2/access.log), it will still show the private IP address of the proxy container instead of the real IP address. This issue is specific to the Apache web server and has to do with how the server prints the logs. Other software on the web server will be able to use the real IP. To fix this through the Apache logs, see the section Troubleshooting.

Direct Traffic to the NGINX Web Server From the Reverse Proxy

The reverse proxy container is running and the NGINX package has been installed. To work as a reverse proxy, you will add the appropriate website configuration so NGINX can identify (with server_name below) the appropriate hostname, and then pass (with proxy_pass below) the connection to the appropriate LXD container with the actual web server software.

Start a shell in the proxy container.

lxc exec proxy -- sudo --user ubuntu --login

Create the file nginx1.example.com in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ for the configuration of your second website.

nginx1.example.com

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
server {
        listen 80 proxy_protocol;
        listen [::]:80 proxy_protocol;

        server_name nginx1.example.com;

        location / {
                proxy_set_header Host $host;
                proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                proxy_pass http://nginx1.lxd;
        }

        real_ip_header proxy_protocol;
        set_real_ip_from 127.0.0.1;
}

You can run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/nginx1.example.com to create the configuration. Note, you only need to edit the fields server_name to be the hostname of the website.

Enable the website.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/nginx1.example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart the NGINX reverse proxy service.
```
sudo systemctl reload nginx
```
Exit the proxy container and return back to the host.
```
logout
```
From your local computer, visit the URL of your website with your web browser. You should see the following default NGINX page.

Adding Support for HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt

Start a shell in the proxy container.

lxc exec proxy -- sudo --user ubuntu --login

Add the repository ppa:certbot/certbot by running the following command.
```
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
```

Output will look similar to the following.

  
      This is the PPA for packages prepared by Debian Let's Encrypt Team and backported for Ubuntu(s).
      More info: https://launchpad.net/~certbot/+archive/ubuntu/certbot
     Press [ENTER] to continue or Ctrl-c to cancel adding it.

     Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease [88.7 kB]
     ...
     Fetched 3360 kB in 2s (2018 kB/s)
     Reading package lists... Done

Install the following two packages to a) support the creation of Let’s Encrypt certificates; and b) auto-configure the NGINX reverse proxy to use Let’s Encrypt certificates. The packages are pulled from the newly-created repository.
```
sudo apt-get install certbot python-certbot-nginx
```
Note
This configures the reverse proxy to also act as a TLS Termination Proxy. Any HTTPS configuration is only found in the proxy container. By doing so, it is not necessary to perform any tasks inside the web server containers relating to certificates and Let’s Encrypt.

Run certbot as root with the --nginx parameter in order to perform the auto-configuration of Let’s Encrypt for the first website. You will be asked to supply a valid email address for urgent renewal and security notices. You will then be asked to accept the Terms of Service and whether you would like to be contacted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the future. Next, you will provide the website for which you are activating HTTPS. Finally, you can choose to set up a facility that automatically redirects HTTP connections to HTTPS connections.

sudo certbot --nginx

  
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator nginx, Installer nginx
Enter email address (used for urgent renewal and security notices) (Enter 'c' to
cancel): [email protected]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Please read the Terms of Service at
https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.2-November-15-2017.pdf. You must
agree in order to register with the ACME server at
https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(A)gree/(C)ancel: A

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Would you be willing to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a founding partner of the Let's Encrypt project and the non-profit
organization that develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about our work
encrypting the web, EFF news, campaigns, and ways to support digital freedom.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(Y)es/(N)o: N

Which names would you like to activate HTTPS for?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1: apache1.example.com
2: nginx1.example.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Select the appropriate numbers separated by commas and/or spaces, or leave input
blank to select all options shown (Enter 'c' to cancel): 1
Obtaining a new certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for apache1.example.com
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges
Deploying Certificate to VirtualHost /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/apache1.example.com

Please choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, removing HTTP access.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1: No redirect - Make no further changes to the webserver configuration.
2: Redirect - Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access. Choose this for
new sites, or if you're confident your site works on HTTPS. You can undo this
change by editing your web server's configuration.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Select the appropriate number [1-2] then [enter] (press 'c' to cancel): 2
Redirecting all traffic on port 80 to ssl in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/apache1.example.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Congratulations! You have successfully enabled https://apache1.example.com

You should test your configuration at:
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=apache1.example.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/apache1.example.com/fullchain.pem
   Your key file has been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/apache1.example.com/privkey.pem
   Your cert will expire on 2019-10-07. To obtain a new or tweaked
   version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot again
   with the "certonly" option. To non-interactively renew *all* of
   your certificates, run "certbot renew"
 - Your account credentials have been saved in your Certbot
   configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a
   secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will
   also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Certbot so
   making regular backups of this folder is ideal.
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le

Run certbot as root with the --nginx parameter in order to perform the auto-configuration of Let’s Encrypt for the second website. This is the second time we run certbot, therefore we are asked directly to select the website to configure.

sudo certbot --nginx

  
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator nginx, Installer nginx

Which names would you like to activate HTTPS for?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1: apache1.example.com
2: nginx1.example.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Select the appropriate numbers separated by commas and/or spaces, or leave input
blank to select all options shown (Enter 'c' to cancel): 2
Obtaining a new certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for nginx1.example.com
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges
Deploying Certificate to VirtualHost /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx1.example.com

Please choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, removing HTTP access.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1: No redirect - Make no further changes to the webserver configuration.
2: Redirect - Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access. Choose this for
new sites, or if you're confident your site works on HTTPS. You can undo this
change by editing your web server's configuration.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Select the appropriate number [1-2] then [enter] (press 'c' to cancel): 2
Redirecting all traffic on port 80 to ssl in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx1.example.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Congratulations! You have successfully enabled https://nginx1.example.com

You should test your configuration at:
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=nginx1.example.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/nginx1.example.com/fullchain.pem
   Your key file has been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/nginx1.example.com/privkey.pem
   Your cert will expire on 2019-10-07. To obtain a new or tweaked
   version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot again
   with the "certonly" option. To non-interactively renew *all* of
   your certificates, run "certbot renew"
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le

After adding all websites, perform a dry run in order to test the renewal of the certificates. Check that all websites are updating successfully to ensure the automated facility will update the certificates without further effort.

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

  
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/apache1.example.com.conf
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cert not due for renewal, but simulating renewal for dry run
Plugins selected: Authenticator nginx, Installer nginx
Renewing an existing certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for apache1.example.com
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
new certificate deployed with reload of nginx server; fullchain is
/etc/letsencrypt/live/apache1.example.com/fullchain.pem
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/nginx1.example.com.conf
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cert not due for renewal, but simulating renewal for dry run
Plugins selected: Authenticator nginx, Installer nginx
Renewing an existing certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for nginx1.example.com
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
new certificate deployed with reload of nginx server; fullchain is
/etc/letsencrypt/live/nginx1.example.com/fullchain.pem
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
** DRY RUN: simulating 'certbot renew' close to cert expiry
**          (The test certificates below have not been saved.)

Congratulations, all renewals succeeded. The following certs have been renewed:
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/apache1.example.com/fullchain.pem (success)
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/nginx1.example.com/fullchain.pem (success)
** DRY RUN: simulating 'certbot renew' close to cert expiry
**          (The test certificates above have not been saved.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Your account credentials have been saved in your Certbot
   configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a
   secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will
   also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Certbot so
   making regular backups of this folder is ideal.

Note
The certbot package adds a systemd timer in order to activate the automated renewal of Let’s Encrypt certificates. You can view the details of this timer by running systemctl list-timers.

The certbot tool edits and changes the NGINX configuration files of your websites. In doing so, certbot does not obey initial listen directive (listen 80 proxy_protocol;) and does not add the proxy_protocol parameter to the newly added listen 443 ssl; lines. You must edit the configuration files for each website and append “proxy_protocol” to each “listen 443 ssl;” line.
```
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/apache1.example.com
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx1.example.com
```
```
  
listen 443 ssl proxy_protocol; # managed by Certbot
listen [::]:443 ssl proxy_protocol; # managed by Certbot
```
Note
Each website configuration file has two pairs of listen directives: HTTP and HTTPS, respectively. The first is the original pair for HTTP that was added in a previous section. The second pair was added by certbot for HTTPS. These are pairs because they they cover both IPv4 and IPv6. The notation [::] refers to IPv6. When adding the parameter proxy_protocol, add it before the ; on each line as shown above.
Restart NGINX.
```
sudo systemctl restart nginx
```

Troubleshooting

Browser Error “SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG”

You have configured Certbot and created the appropriate Let’s Encrypt configuration for each website. But when you access the website from your browser, you get the following error.

  
Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to apache1.example.com. SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length. Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

    The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
    Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

This error is caused when the NGINX reverse proxy in the proxy container does not have the proxy_protocol parameter in the listen 443 directives. Without the parameter, the reverse proxy does not consume the PROXY protocol information before it performs the HTTPS work. It mistakenly passes the PROXY protocol information to the HTTPS module, hence the record too long error.

Follow the instructions in the previous section and add proxy_protocol to all listen 443 directives. Finally, restart NGINX.

Error “Unable to connect” or “This site can’t be reached”

When you attempt to connect to the website from your local computer and receive Unable to connect or This site can’t be reached errors, it is likely the proxy devices have not been configured.

Run the following command on the host to verify whether LXD is listening and is able to accept connections to ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS).

sudo ss -ltp '( sport = :http || sport = :https )'

Note
The ss command is similar to netstat and lsof. It shows information about network connections. In this case, we use it to verify whether there is a service on ports 80 and 443, and which service it is. * -l, to display the listening sockets, * -t, to display only TCP sockets, * -p, to show which processes use those sockets, * ( sport = :http || sport = :https ), to show only ports 80 and 443 (HTTP and HTTPS, respectively).

In the following output we can verify that both ports 80 and 443 (HTTP and HTTPS, respectively) are in the LISTEN state. In the last column we verify that the process listening is lxd itself.

  
State     Recv-Q  Send-Q   Local Address:Port   Peer Address:Port
LISTEN    0       128                  *:http              *:*       users:(("lxd",pid=1301,fd=7),("lxd",pid=1301,fd=5))
LISTEN    0       128                  *:https             *:*       users:(("lxd",pid=1349,fd=7),("lxd",pid=1349,fd=5))

If you see a process listed other than lxd, stop that service and restart the proxy container. By restarting the proxy container, LXD will apply the proxy devices again.

The Apache access.log Shows the IP Address of the Proxy Container

You have set up the apache1 container and verified that it is accessible from the internet. But the logs at /var/log/apache2/access.log still show the private IP address of the proxy container, either the private IPv4 (10.x.x.x) or the private IPv6 addresses. What went wrong?

The default log formats for printing access logs in Apache only print the IP address of the host of the last hop (i.e. the proxy server). This is the %h format specifier as shown below.

  
LogFormat "%v:%p %h %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O "%{Referer}i" "%{User-Agent}i"" vhost_combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O "%{Referer}i" "%{User-Agent}i"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O" common

The %h must be manually replaced with the %a format specifier, which prints the value as returned by the real RemoteIP Apache module.

  
LogFormat "%v:%p %a %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O "%{Referer}i" "%{User-Agent}i"" vhost_combined
LogFormat "%a %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O "%{Referer}i" "%{User-Agent}i"" combined
LogFormat "%a %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O" common

Run the following command in the apache1 container to edit the configuration file httpd.conf and perform the change from %h to %a.
```
sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
```
Reload the Apache web server service.
```
sudo systemctl reload apache2
```

Next Steps

You have set up a reverse proxy to host many websites on the same server and installed each website in a separate container. You can install static or dynamic websites in the containers. For dynamic websites, you may need additional configuration; check the respective documentation for setup using a reverse proxy. In addition, you may also use NGINX as a reverse proxy for non-HTTP(S) services.

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

Find answers, ask questions, and help others.

This guide is published under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license.

Source link

Shared

Cloud VPS

Dedicated

Websites

WordPress Permalinks: How to Manage Your Website’s URL Structure

What WordPress Permalinks Are

The 6 Types of Permalink Structures in WordPress (And Which One You Should Use)

1. Plain

2. Day and Name

3. Month and Name

Get Content Delivered Straight to Your Inbox

4. Numeric

5. Post Name

6. Custom Structure

2 Ways to Create Custom Permalinks

1. Use WordPress’ Custom Structure Tags

2. Use the Custom Permalinks Plugin

Set Up Your WordPress Permalinks

Do More with DreamPress

Set Up a Reverse Proxy in an LXD Container to Host Multiple Websites

Introduction

Before You Begin

Creating the Containers

Configuring the Apache Web Server Container

Creating the NGINX Web Server Container

Setting up the Reverse Proxy

Direct Traffic to the Apache Web Server From the Reverse Proxy

Direct Traffic to the NGINX Web Server From the Reverse Proxy

Adding Support for HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt

Troubleshooting

Browser Error “SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG”

Error “Unable to connect” or “This site can’t be reached”

The Apache access.log Shows the IP Address of the Proxy Container

Next Steps

More Information