We will not cover all the details of setting up the Apache2 web server with SSL because (a) your distribution probably handles most of it, (b) it is something that is not specific to our software, and (c) there is plenty of good documentation from official sources. We will also not cover setting up your domain name because that is far out of scope for this tutorial and is handled by numerous other generic web site tutorials and instructions.
We will assume that you are using VirtualHost to organize your Apache configuration; even if you only host a single domain, it is still useful to do this.
The easiest thing to do on typical Apache installs is to put your configuration in a single file named something like 000-default.conf (you can choose a more descriptive name if you like, especially if you have multiple virtual hosts and separate configuration files for each one). This goes in the configuration directory, which is usually named conf.d and can be found within the Apache configuration directory. On Debian/Ubuntu-based systems that is typically /etc/apache2/conf.d/ and on RedHat-based systems it is /etc/httpd/conf.d/ but if you install Apache a different way then you may find configuration files elsewhere.
Be sure to reload your Apache configuration after making changes, service apache2 reload (Debian/Ubuntu) or systemctl reload httpd (RedHat). As usual, you will need root privileges to edit configuration files and run reloading commands. Therefore, either log in as root while performing these tasks or run commands with the sudo command prefixed in front of them, assuming you set up sudo as described early in this tutorial.
The remainder of this section assumes you have created a suitable configuration file in the correct configuration directory, and that you have a domain name to fill in for the blank <domain_name>.
We use mod_proxy to set up Apache as a proxy server in front of our application servers. Therefore, ensure that this is installed and enabled.
Run a2query -m proxy, which should show output like proxy (enabled by site administrator).
If not, run a2enmod proxy and then reload your configuration using service apache2 reload.
You should see output from httpd -M | grep proxy showing the proxy_module.
If not, edit the file /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/00-proxy.conf and uncomment (remove the leading #) the following lines:
LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule lbmethod_byrequests_module modules/mod_lbmethod_byrequests.so
LoadModule proxy_balancer_module modules/mod_proxy_balancer.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
Then reload your configuration with systemctl reload httpd.
This is the file that will contain your VirtualHost configuration and hopefully will be the only Apache2-related configuration file you need to edit. Note that you may have already created or edited this file when setting up SSL and it may already have a VirtualHost configuration block with a bunch of SSL directives. In which case, you simply need to edit or add more lines within the VirtualHost block and you can move on to the next section of this tutorial (either 'Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS' or if that is already done, then 'Configuring the image server').
However, if it doesn't already exist, then we suggest naming your Apache2 configuration file 000-default.conf if your website is the only or main one being hosted on this (virtual) server. In the case of Debian/Ubuntu, there will already be an /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf that you can edit. Otherwise, choose a lower priority name such as 001-domain-name.conf and be sure to coordinate with the other users on your server.
You should put your configuration file into the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory (if it is not already there) and run the a2ensite command to enable it. For example, if your server configuration is written into a file named 000-default.conf then run a2ensite 000-default. Similarly, the a2dissite can disable the website configuration if you need to do that for any reason.
Then run service apache2 reload to prod Apache2 to reload the configuration.
You should put your configuration file into the /etc/httpd/conf.d directory (if it is not already there). You may need to edit the welcome.conf file in that directory and comment out everything inside if it (by putting the # character at the beginning of every line). We do not suggest simply deleting the welcome.conf file because future upgrades might reinstall it.
Then run systemctl reload httpd to prod Apache2 to reload the configuration.
Although this should be part of your basic SSL setup, just in case, we will include an example of a configuration statement that redirects any old-fashioned HTTP requests to the SSL-enabled HTTPS equivalent:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName <domain_name>
Redirect "/" "https://<domain_name>/"
</VirtualHost>
Before continuing with the configuration, please choose where on your filesystem you would like to keep the files that you wish to serve on the web, also known as <document_root>. By default on many distributions these days that is /var/www/html/, which is fine if that works for you. Either way, change <document_root> to your preferred filesystem path. However, bear in mind that you should make sure that the web server and the imagery database that you set up in the processing section all agree on the location of the files. Roughly speaking, that means:
<system_path_base> = <document_root> / <web_path_base>
So, for example, if you wish to have the usual <document_root> = /var/www/html and your <web_path_base> = /img then your <system_path_base> had better be /var/www/html/img. It is possible to be more flexible with symlinks, so for example, you could simply ensure that /var/www/html/img is a symlink to the actual location of the imagery (presuming your Apache configuration allows Options FollowSymLinks, which is likely, but you should consult Apache documentation if this becomes an issue).
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName <domain_name>
DocumentRoot "<document_root>"
ProxyPass <web_path_base>/ "!"
# Further backend and frontend configuration statements will go here, later:
# ...
# The remaining configuration statements should have come from your SSL setup;
# if they are not present then go back to the Basic setup and SSL section.
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile <path_to_my_certificate>
SSLCertificateKeyFile <path_to_my_key>
SSLCACertificateFile <path_to_CA_certificate>
SSLProtocol +TLSv1.2
SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
</VirtualHost>
And reload your web server using the appropriate command described above.
In the end, you should be able to access imagery in your web browser. To get a sample image URL at this stage, open up one of the _insert.sql files that you generated in the processing stage. For example, run find <sqldir> -name '*_insert.sql' | head and open one of the results. Inside you will see an INSERT statement and the first value after the VALUES keyword should be a sample URL. Open your web browser, type your <domain_name> and then paste the sample URL after it. If your domain name has been configured correctly and your web server is running then you should see a street view image pop up.