Introduction

We provide a simple, PHP-based reverse proxy script for hosting community portals from any web server. You’ll find this index.php file on the Installation tab of your community portal configuration. This is useful for testing; allowing you to serve a community portal from a directory on an existing website, or from the built-in PHP webserver.

However, we highly recommend that you use a production-ready proxy like nginx¹ to serve community portals. With this approach you can completely ignore the index.php script.

If you're a Cerb Cloud subscriber, we include high-availability community portal hosting. This is already handled for you.

Add a virtual host to Nginx

Create a new virtual host in nginx for your community portal. Use the following configuration file:


# HTTPS
server {
  set $cerb_host cerb.example;
  set $portal_host portal.example;
  set $portal_code abcd1234;

  listen 443 ssl;
  server_name $portal_host;
  #access_log off;

  # Increase upload max size from default of 1MB
  client_max_body_size 32m;

  charset utf-8;

  # DNS
  #resolver 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 valid=300s;
  #resolver_timeout 5s;

  # SSL
  # [TODO] Replace this with your own SSL certificate!
  ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/nginx-selfsigned.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/nginx-selfsigned.key;
  ssl_protocols TLSv1.2;
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
  ssl_ciphers HIGH:!CAMELLIA:!RC4:!PSK:!aNULL:@STRENGTH;
  ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem;

  # Resource proxy
  location ~* ^/resource/ {
    rewrite ^/resource/(.*) /resource/$1 break;
    proxy_pass https://$cerb_host;
  }

  # Everything else
  location / {
    rewrite ^/(.*) /portal/$portal_code/$1 break;
    proxy_pass https://$cerb_host;
    proxy_set_header DevblocksProxySSL 1;
    proxy_set_header DevblocksProxyHost $portal_host;
    proxy_set_header DevblocksProxyBase "";
  }

  # Deny any other PHP scripts
  location ~ \.php$ {
    deny all;
  }
}

# Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
server {
  set $portal_host portal.example;

  listen 80;
  server_name $portal_host;
  #access_log off;

  location / {
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
  }
}

Modify the variables at the top of the server block:

$cerb_host is the domain where you’re hosting your Cerb installation. We assume you’re using https://.
$portal_host is the domain where you’re hosting the public Support Center.
$portal_code is your portal’s unique ID, which you can find in Setup » Portals.

You'll need to provide your own SSL certificate and private key in ssl_certificate and ssl_certificate_key.

Note:

This guide assumes you have friendly URLs enabled for Cerb. If not, you'll need to modify the rewrite directives, like:

/index.php/resource/$1
/index.php/portal/$portal_code/$1

Reload nginx

Reload nginx to start serving your community portal.

On Ubuntu:


service nginx reload

Test the community portal

Open your community portal URL a web browser.

Create a new Support Center community portal

References