Configuring mod_dumpio with apache2 in Ubuntu

 mod_dumpio allows for the logging of all input received by Apache and/or all output sent by Apache to be logged (dumped) to the error.log file.

The data logging is done right after SSL decoding (for input) and right before SSL encoding (for output). As can be expected, this can produce extreme volumes of data, and should only be used when debugging problems.

To configure mod_dumpio you need to enable dump_io.

$ sudo a2enmod dump_io

Next add below mentioned 3 lines in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

#To capture http request
DumpIOInput On

#To capture http response
DumpIOOutput On 

#To capture everything
DumpIOLogLevel debug

Now change LogLevel in your /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default or /etc/apache2/sites-available/default file to debug.

LogLevel debug

After doing all above changes restart apache2.

$ service apache2 restart

To view logs you need to check /var/log/apache2/error.log

$ tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log

To test make a dummy request as shown below and at the same time view error.log file where you can lot of lines related to this request.

$ curl http://127.0.0.1/ -d group=user -d sort=name

Since dump_io will create log of disk io, enabling it in production servers is not a good idea. It will slow down your production server.

Enable ssl/https with apache2 on Ubuntu

 

First install apache2 on you Ubuntu machine then follow the procedure mentioned below to enable ssl/https.

Enable ssl:

$ sudo a2enmod ssl

Activate new virtual host:

$ sudo a2ensite default-ssl

Create self signed ssl certificate:

$ sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key -out /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt

Above command will ask some details like country name, state, email address etc…

Set ssl certificates path in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl file:

$ vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl

Find lines starting with SSLEngine, SSLCertificateFile, and SSLCertificateKeyFile change them as following:

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key

then save and exit from default-ssl file.

Now reload apache2:

$ sudo service apache2 reload

After reloading try accessing your hostname/IP with https on your browser.

Apache2 disable http

 

Due to security reason at any instance if you want to disable http on your apache2 webserver comment following lines in /etc/apache2/ports.conf file.

First open /etc/apache2/ports.conf file with any editor.

Then search for following line in ports.conf file.

NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen 80

Comment above mentioned lines:

#NameVirtualHost *:80
#Listen 80

After commenting restart apache2.

$ service apache2 restart

Now try to access your website with http, it should show message as unable to connect.