Can I avoid setting up a proxy for GeoServer, Apache?

Question

I'm using Apache (port 80) and GeoServer (port 8080) on Windows 7. I guess I need to set up a proxy if I want to use WFS, since they're on different ports.

My kind of silly question is, can I avoid it? If I re-set my website on GeoServer's www file, is everything going to work fine? Does GeoServer share the same characteristics with Apache?

If GeoServer's www file is a bad idea can you please help me set up a proxy? I never done it before, so if you have a link with an analytical tutorial, it would be great...

Answer 1

I assume that your Apache is on port 80 and your Geoserver is on the same machine on port 8080.

I would suggest that you set up a reverse proxy on your Apache server. On my server I have set up Apache to resolve http://example.com/geoserver to http://example.com:8080/

That way I can just use the wms link as http://example.com/geoserver/wms & I don't need to use a proxy.cgi file.

You can see this Post on how to set Apache to route to another port using Virtual Hosts.

Answer 2

Almost any tool that you want to use with Apache or Geoserver will accept a port number as part of the URL. So for something like openlayers, a simple WFS example is shown at http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/wfs-filter.html

If you look at the source of that, you'll see a part that looks like:

            protocol: new OpenLayers.Protocol.WFS({
                url:  "http://demo.opengeo.org/geoserver/wfs",
                featureType: "tasmania_roads",
                featureNS: "http://www.openplans.org/topp"
            }),

For you, that is going to be something like:

            protocol: new OpenLayers.Protocol.WFS({
                url:  "http://localhost:8080/geoserver/wfs",
                featureType: "tasmania_roads",
                featureNS: "http://www.openplans.org/topp"
            }),

(where the bit after localhost:8080 depends on how you set up your geoserver, but should be fine if http://localhost:8080/geoserver brings up the admin console, as shown in http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/installation/windows/installer.html)

With that information, you should be able to avoid setting up a reverse proxy on Apache.