swiftonhpss/doc/markdown/apache-deploy.md

Deploying Apache as front end for Openstack Swift in Fedora/RHEL

NOTE: This guide is for manual deployment. A shell script to automate the following is present in extras/apache-deploy.

Architecture

Swift can be configured to work both using an integral web front-end and using a full-fledged Web Server such as the Apache2 (HTTPD) web server. The integral web front-end is a wsgi mini "Web Server" which opens up its own socket and serves http requests directly. The incoming requests accepted by the integral web front-end are then forwarded to a wsgi application (the core swift) for further handling, possibly via wsgi middleware sub-components.

client<-->'integral web front-end'<-->middleware<-->'core swift'

To gain full advantage of Apache2, Swift can alternatively be configured to work as a request processor of the Apache2 server. This alternative deployment scenario uses mod_wsgi of Apache2 to forward requests to the swift wsgi application and middleware.

client<-->'Apache2 with mod_wsgi'<-->middleware<-->'core swift'

The integral web front-end offers simplicity and requires minimal config. It is also the web front-end most commonly used with Swift. Additionally, the integral web front-end includes support for receiving chunked transfer encoding from a client, presently not supported by Apache2 in the operation mode described here.

Steps

Installing Apache with mod_wsgi module:

yum install httpd mod_wsgi

Create a directory for Apache wsgi files:

mkdir /var/www/swift

Create a wsgi file for each service under /var/www/swift

/var/www/swift/proxy-server.wsgi

from swift.common.wsgi import init_request_processor
application, conf, logger, log_name = \
    init_request_processor('/etc/swift/proxy-server.conf','proxy-server')

/var/www/swift/account-server.wsgi

from swift.common.wsgi import init_request_processor
application, conf, logger, log_name = \
    init_request_processor('/etc/swift/account-server.conf','account-server')

/var/www/swift/container-server.wsgi

from swift.common.wsgi import init_request_processor
application, conf, logger, log_name = \
    init_request_processor('/etc/swift/container-server.conf','container-server')

/var/www/swift/object-server.wsgi

from swift.common.wsgi import init_request_processor
application, conf, logger, log_name = \
    init_request_processor('/etc/swift/object-server.conf','object-server')

Create /etc/httpd/conf.d/swift_wsgi.conf configuration file that will define port and Virtual Host per each local service.

WSGISocketPrefix /var/run/wsgi

#Proxy Service
Listen 8080
<VirtualHost *:8080>
    ServerName proxy-server
    LimitRequestBody 5368709122
    WSGIDaemonProcess proxy-server processes=5 threads=1 user=swift
    WSGIProcessGroup proxy-server
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/swift/proxy-server.wsgi
    LimitRequestFields 200
    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/proxy-server.log
    LogLevel debug
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/proxy.log combined
</VirtualHost>

#Object Service
Listen 6010
<VirtualHost *:6010>
    ServerName object-server
    WSGIDaemonProcess object-server processes=5 threads=1 user=swift
    WSGIProcessGroup object-server
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/swift/object-server.wsgi
    LimitRequestFields 200
    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/object-server.log
    LogLevel debug
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

#Container Service
Listen 6011
<VirtualHost *:6011>
    ServerName container-server
    WSGIDaemonProcess container-server processes=5 threads=1 user=swift
    WSGIProcessGroup container-server
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/swift/container-server.wsgi
    LimitRequestFields 200
    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/container-server.log
    LogLevel debug
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

#Account Service
Listen 6012
<VirtualHost *:6012>
    ServerName account-server
    WSGIDaemonProcess account-server processes=5 threads=1 user=swift
    WSGIProcessGroup account-server
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/swift/account-server.wsgi
    LimitRequestFields 200
    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/account-server.log
    LogLevel debug
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

(Re)Start Apache server:

service httpd stop
service httpd start

Troubleshooting

• Make sure you have set SElinux to Permissive or Disabled by editing /etc/sysconfig/selinux. You will need to reboot your system for the changed value to take effect. On restart, you can confirm this by running:

    getenforce
  

• Make sure conf files in /etc/swift are accessible by swift user:

    chown swift:swift /etc/swift/*
  

• Make sure the directory /var/lib/swift exists should you see the following error in /var/log/httpd/error_log

    [Fri Oct 20 02:05:25.617290 2013] [:alert] [pid 3491] (2)No such file or
    directory: mod_wsgi (pid=3491): Unable to change working directory to
    '/var/lib/swift'
  

• Make sure the port numbers in /etc/httpd/conf.d/swift_wsgi.conf and */etc/swift/conf files are same.

• For errors in logs like the following:

    13)Permission denied: mod_wsgi (pid=26962): Unable to connect to WSGI
    daemon process '<process-name>' on '/etc/httpd/logs/wsgi.26957.0.1.sock'
    after multiple attempts.
  

  Refer: https://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/ConfigurationIssues#Location_Of_UNIX_Sockets

• If your swift deployment uses some authentication mechanism that uses HTTP_AUTHORIZATION variable, you need to turn on WSGIPassAuthorization as described here:

  https://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/ConfigurationDirectives#WSGIPassAuthorization

Issue with gluster-swift

Unlike vanilla swift that runs as swift user, gluster-swift runs all four swift servers as root user.

But mod_wsgi does not allow invoking wsgi applications as root: https://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/ConfigurationDirectives#WSGIDaemonProcess

A workaround is to mount gluster volume as root beforehand:

mount -t glusterfs localhost:myvolume /mnt/gluster-object/myvolume

More information

• There is a Ubuntu specific guide to deploy Apache with Openstack Swift here: http://docs.openstack.org/developer/swift/apache_deployment_guide.html

• Example apache configuration from swift source can be found here: https://github.com/openstack/swift/tree/master/examples