Feature Request : Install in a sub_path

[yalh76]

Would be interesting to be able to install it in a sub_path like http://www.example.com/distbin
Maybe the externalUrl: process.env.EXTERNAL_URL could be add to different links and mechanisms ^^

[gobengo]

It is nice when a web app has a built-in for this sort of thing, but it takes a bunch of code to get right in an app. It's not just prefixing URI routes, different users have different expectations about also rewriting Set-Cookie headers, how to deal with redirects, etc. It's a lot of code to maintain for something that's not core and distinct. If there's a library I can drop in, I'd consider adding it, otherwise I don't expect to add this soon.

Instead, I would recommend anyone hoping to deploy this at a subpath to instead route traffic first to a reverse proxy like nginx, have nginx rewrite URIs/headers/etc, then proxy_pass traffic to distbin.

i.e. put a filter in front of distbin that does whatever you want, including subpath routing

[gobengo]

I'll leave this open until that functionality is added or there is example code and docs on how to do that with nginx.

[yalh76]

Well I tried installation managed using nginx rewrite:
`
location /distbin/ {

if ($scheme = http) {
rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri? permanent;
}
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8096/;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_buffering off;
sub_filter '"https://example.com/' '"https://example.com/distbin/';
sub_filter '"/' '"./';
sub_filter_last_modified off;
sub_filter_once off;
}
`

Rewrite of link works well but there something that nginx can't manage:

• When you post a reply a post, the response url is provided but it's not the good one as the responsedoesn't go threw nginx

[gobengo]

response url is provided but it's not the good one as the responsedoesn't go threw nginx

Will you elaborate on what URL 'is provided' and how/where? And what 'the good one' would be?

Next week I should be able to recreate this and see what's up, but that info will help me think through it until then.

[yalh76]

Hard to explain, better with an example...
On https://test2.yh.yalh.net/distbin I wrote a post : https://test2.yh.yalh.net/distbin/activities/e44615fc-5d40-4770-a524-d5e035c8113b

Joined the source of the post from distbin-db/activities
data%3Abase64,dXJuOnV1aWQ6ZTQ0NjE1ZmMtNWQ0MC00NzcwLWE1MjQtZDVlMDM1YzgxMTNi.txt
{ "type": "Create", "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams", "cc": [ "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public" ], "object": { "id": "urn:uuid:2d3a77f5-c259-428f-9c71-30e4057d5d95", "content": "# Test 3B", "generator": { "name": "distbin-html", "type": "Application", "url": "https://test2.yh.yalh.net/distbin" }, "type": "Note" }, "id": "urn:uuid:e44615fc-5d40-4770-a524-d5e035c8113b", "published": "2019-03-15T19:27:40.039Z" }
So the file is OK

But I look at the post himself: https://test2.yh.yalh.net/distbin/activities/e44615fc-5d40-4770-a524-d5e035c8113b, there are some errors for some fields:

[yalh76]

Will you elaborate on what URL 'is provided' and how/where? And what 'the good one' would be?
The URL used seems to be https://test2.yh.yalh.net but the good one would be https://test2.yh.yalh.net/distbin

[gobengo]

@yalh76 I made some changes to make this possible, released as v1.2.0 and illustrated how they can be used with nginx over here: https://github.com/gobengo/distbin/tree/master/etc/distbin-nginx-subpath

Try it out and let me know if it helps?

[yalh76]

Perfect working fine, implemented, tested and gone to production.
Two points:

1. From https://github.com/gobengo/distbin/blob/master/etc/distbin-nginx-subpath/nginx.conf, I had to not use: rewrite ^/distbin/(.*) /$1 break;, using it, it redirect me to the Yunohost panel, maybe something specific on Yunohost
2. on the Public page, there is an error in fetched from URL: (not important but to let you know)
   
   

[gobengo]

@yalh76 Were both of those images real screenshots? What is the difference between the configurations (ostensibly EXTERNAL_URL values + nginx.conf are what matters) for which the two images were captured?

This is where that URL is built:

distbin/src/distbin-html/public.ts

Line 84 in 57ee1e9

const externalPageUrl = pageUrl.replace(apiUrl, externalUrl);

distbin-html and the core distbin api are run logically separate. Traffic first comes into distbin-html, and then distbin-html makes JSON API calls to distbin. apiUrl is the internal URL to the distbin API. (apiUrl is almost always something like http://localhost:{randomFreePort} regardless of configuration.

EDIT: I can just build this URL with a bit more awareness for if externalUrl ends in a trailing slash. I will do so. I would still like to know what your config values were set to so I can explicitly test and make sure what I do works. Was it EXTERNAL_URL=https://distbin.yalh.net/mydistbin/ in the first screenshot and EXTERNAL_URL=https://distbin.yalh.net/ in the second?

[yalh76]

Yes they where real screenshots, took from the same instance, the second one was took after using a change_url script from Yunohost that let us move an application from one url to another one.

To make it cleaner, I reinstalled two fresh from scratch distbin.

1. https://distbin.yalh.net
2. https://distbin2.yalh.net/mydistbin

I put for each the actual configuration .ENV and nginx configuration:

1. https://distbin.yalh.net/public
2. https://distbin2.yalh.net/mydistbin/public

and yes it's EXTERNAL_URL=https://distbin2.yalh.net/mydistbin/ and EXTERNAL_URL=https://distbin.yalh.net/ like you indicatedin the readme ^^

[yalh76]

I just installed two other distbin removing the ending / for EXTERNAL_URL=

3. one on the root: https://distbin3.yalh.net
4. one on a subpath: https://distbin4.yalh.net/mydistbin

Removing the ending / cause new problem:

3. https://distbin3.yalh.net/activities/9eed8b93-5f13-4ead-96ac-8d7a932ada27
   Failed to fetch replies at https://distbin3.yalh.net/activities/9eed8b93-5f13-4ead-96ac-8d7a932ada27/replies (code 404)

4. the link rewrite doesn't work: all go to the root path instead of the sub_path

PS: all the distbin instance may be available from internet

[yalh76]

Maybe it comes from the way the url is generated : pageUrl.replace(apiUrl, externalUrl);

distbin/src/distbin-html/public.ts

Line 84 in 57ee1e9

const externalPageUrl = pageUrl.replace(apiUrl, externalUrl);

in other pages, it uses urlResolve(externalUrl,"./public", )

distbin/src/distbin-html/partials.ts

Line 93 in 57ee1e9

<a href="${urlResolve(

distbin/src/distbin-html/about.ts

Line 17 in 57ee1e9

inReplyTo: urlResolve(externalUrl, `.${req.url}`),

[gobengo]

@yalh76 Yeah, I'm realizing that even url.resolve is no good because it assumes externalUrl will end in a trailing slash and: urlResolve('https://mysite.com/distbin', './foo') is https://mysite.com/foo. I need a like... urlConcat that takes into account whether externalUrl ends in a slash. Easy enough to make as a utility function and replace all uses of urlResolve or just String.replace, but can't do right this sec, as I have some other deadlines.

[yalh76]

not urgent ^^
even with // it's working