Question

I have a Django applciation running on Apache with mod_wsgi, but I would like to create a development server on the same machine.

I can reach my website by http://IP_ADD and I would like to reach the development server from http://IP_ADD:8080 or another port.

But as you notice, I would like to prevent accessing to 8080 port from users who do not enter predetermined username/password.

How can I achive such protection? I may allow only certain IP address but it is not a solution.

Another question is also about the chosen port. I hace choice 8080 port but I will also setup issue tracking system, SVN etc. and I am not sure which ports should I open for them.

Thank you

Answer 1

For each of the sites you want to host, you could create a separate Apache site with a VirtualHost file along the following lines:

<VirtualHost *:8080>
  ServerName www.example.com:8080    // Your name (if available)
  ServerAlias 12.23.34.45            // Your IP
  DocumentRoot /var/www/mydjangoapp  // Your folder

  <Directory />
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 127
    AuthName "Restricted area"
    AuthType Basic
    AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/users_mydjangoapp  // Allowed users file
    require valid-user
  </Directory>

The userfile itself can be generated using Apache’s authentication system. For each site, you could add a seperate user file to contain the access for that part of your system. For IP based access, just add lines like Allow from 123.123.123.123 below the Allow from 127 line.

Finally, additional sites can be created by creating more of these Apache sites (see for example here for more details). Just adapt the port (8080 in my example) to the one you want to host the additional sites under.