Configure Instance without Subdomain

How to configure remark42 without a subdomain

All documentation examples show configurations with remark42 on its own subdomain, i.e., https://remark42.example.com. However, it is possible and sometimes desirable to run remark42 without a subdomain, but just under some path, i.e., https://example.com/remark42.

• The frontend URL looks like this: s.src = 'https://example.com/remark42/web/embed.js;

• The backend REMARK_URL parameter will be https://example.com/remark42. ALLOWED_HOSTS="'self'" and AUTH_SAME_SITE=strict to make comments work only from the same domain.

• And you also need to slightly modify the callback URL for the social media login APIs:

  • Facebook Valid OAuth Redirect URIs: https://example.com/remark42/auth/facebook/callback
  • Google Authorized redirect URIs: https://example.com/remark42/auth/google/callback
  • GitHub Authorised callback URL: https://example.com/remark42/auth/github/callback

Docker Compose configuration

Both Nginx and Caddy configuration below rely on remark42 available on hostname remark42, which is achieved by having container_name: remark42 in Docker Compose configuration file.

Example docker-compose.yml:

version: "2"
services:
  remark42:
    image: umputun/remark42:latest
    container_name: remark42
    restart: always
    environment:
      - REMARK_URL=https://example.com/remark42/
      - SITE=<site_ID>
      - SECRET=<secret>
      - ADMIN_SHARED_ID=<shared_id>
    volumes:
      - ./data:/srv/var
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: "10m"
        max-file: "1"

Nginx configuration

The nginx.conf would then look something like:

  location /remark42/ {
    rewrite /remark42/(.*) /$1 break;
    proxy_pass http://remark42:8080/; // use internal docker name of remark42 container for proxy
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
  }

Caddy configuration

Example of Caddy 2 configuration (Caddyfile) running remark42 service on example.com/remark42/, proxying
requests under the path /remark42 through to the docker container:

example.com {
  root * /srv/www

  log {
    output file /logs/example.com.access.log
  }

  # remark42
  handle_path /remark42* {
    reverse_proxy remark42:8080
  }

  file_server
}

If you are using a legacy version (v1) of Caddy, the following configuration would be appropriate:

example.com {
	gzip
	tls mail@example.com

	root /srv/www
	log  /logs/example.com.access.log

	# remark42
	proxy /remark42/ http://remark42:8080/ {
		without /remark42
		transparent
	}
}