Setting Up an HTTPS Reverse Proxy for Uvicorn with Apache

Uvicorn is a Python web server and development server that supports many frameworks, including Flask, Django, and FastAPI. Developers love Uvicorn for its high performance and ease of use.

1. Installing Uvicorn

Install venv for your local Python:

# apt install python-venv

To keep things isolated from root, create a regular user named mysiteuser:

# useradd -m mysiteuser
# passwd mysite

Log in via SSH as mysiteuser:

ssh mysiteuser@123.123.123.123

Create a Python virtual environment:

$ python -m venv ./venv

Install uvicorn in the virtual environment:

$./venv/bin/pip install uvicorn

Uvicorn configuration. Here is an example mymodule.py for running a Flask app:

#!/bin/python

from flask import Flask

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def hello():
        return 'Hello, World!'

if __name__ == '__main__':
        uvicorn.run(app,host='0.0.0.0',port=3000)

Start the server with the following command:

./venv/bin/uvicorn mymodule:app --reload

Here, mymodule is the name of the Python module containing your Flask application.

2. Installing Apache

Apache's configuration files are located in /etc/apache2/sites-available/

Create the file mysite.conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>
          
</VirtualHost>

Save the configuration and enable it:

a2ensite mysite.conf

Restart Apache to apply the changes:

systemctl restart apache2

3. Integration

Install wsgi support for apache2:

apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3

Configure Apache by editing mysite.conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>
          SSLEngine On
          SSLProxyEngine On
          SSLProxyVerify none
          SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
          SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
          SSLCertificateFile "opt/ssl/server.crt"
          SSLCertificateKeyFile “opt/ssl/server.key”

          ProxyRequests Off
          ProxyPreserveHost On

          ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:3000/
          ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:3000/
</VirtualHost>

Install CertBot:

./venv/bin/pip install certbot

Request a certificate:

./venv/bin/certbot certonly -d mysite.conf --manual --preferred-challenges dns --server https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory --config-dir /opt/ssl --work-dir /opt/ssl --logs-dir /opt/ssl

Configure crontab:

crontab -e

0 0 0 * * * ./venv/bin/certbot certonly -d mysite.conf --manual --preferred-challenges dns --server https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory --config-dir /opt/ssl --work-dir /opt/ssl --logs-dir /opt/ssl