---
title: "Apache HTTP server - Subfolder hosting of your documentation"
slug: "apache-http-server"
description: "Learn to host your Document360 knowledge base in a subfolder with Apache, configure redirects, and prevent duplicate content issues effectively."
tags: ["Custom domain", "Subfolder hosting"]
updated: 2026-06-20T08:17:57Z
published: 2026-06-20T08:17:57Z
canonical: "docs.document360.com/apache-http-server"
---
> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.document360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Apache HTTP server
Hosting your Document360 knowledge base in a subfolder on Apache, such as `example.com/docs`, requires enabling Apache modules and configuring proxy and redirect rules. This article covers enabling the required modules, routing the home page, article and category pages, and the Site API path, generating sitemaps, and handling URL redirection to avoid duplicate content in search engines.
NOTE
Replace the example domain throughout this article with your own Document360-provided domain or custom domain. For example, `example.document360.io` represents your domain, `example.document360.io/v1` represents a workspace subfolder path, and `example.document360.io/help` represents a subfolder home page path.
---
## Before you begin
Subfolder hosting works only when both the **Subfolder path** (for example, `/docs` or `/help`) and the **Site API path** (for example, `/api`) are defined in Document360, with matching configuration on your server.
Ensure the following Apache modules are enabled — these are part of the standard Apache installation:
- `proxy`
- `proxy_http`
- `headers`
- `substitute`
- `proxy_html`
Enable them with:
```
sudo a2enmod proxy proxy_http headers substitute proxy_html
```
---
## How to configure the home page
Configure the following Virtual Host location block to proxy requests for the home page, where the path starts with `/help`:
```
ProxyPreserveHost off
RequestHeader set Host example.document360.io
RequestHeader set requested-by proxy
RequestHeader unset Accept-Encoding
ProxyPass https://example.document360.io/v1
ProxyPassReverse https://example.document360.io/v1
AddOutputFilterByType SUBSTITUTE text/html
substitute 's|href="/docs|href="/help|ni'
substitute 's|href="/v1/docs|href="/help|ni'
substitute 's|href="https://example.document360.io/docs|href="https://docs.example.com/help|ni'
```
### Fixing article preview links for subfolder hosting
Article preview links in the Document360 portal include the workspace and language slug in the URL. For example, the live article URL might be `docs.example.com/getting-started`, while the portal preview link is `docs.example.com/v1/en/getting-started`. You can either add a location block to handle the `/v1/en` path, or set a redirect from `/v1/en` to `/`:
```
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^v1/en$ / [R=301,L,NC]
```
This redirect requires the `rewrite` module:
```
sudo a2enmod rewrite
```
---
## How to configure article and category pages
Add the following location blocks to the same Apache Virtual Host configuration file to proxy article, category, and API requests:
```
ProxyPreserveHost off
RequestHeader set Host example.document360.io
RequestHeader set requested-by proxy
ProxyPass https://example.document360.io/docs/
ProxyPassReverse https://example.document360.io/docs/
AddOutputFilterByType SUBSTITUTE text/html
substitute 's|href="/docs|href="/help|ni'
substitute 's|href="/v1/docs|href="/help|ni'
substitute 's|href="https://example.document360.io/docs|href="https://docs.example.com/help|ni'
ProxyPreserveHost off
RequestHeader set Host example.document360.io
RequestHeader set requested-by proxy
RequestHeader unset Accept-Encoding
ProxyPass https://example.document360.io/api
ProxyPassReverse https://example.document360.io/api
AddOutputFilterByType SUBSTITUTE application/json
substitute 's|href="/docs/|href="/help/|ni'
substitute 's|href="/v1/docs/|href="/help/|ni'
substitute 's|href="https://example.document360.io/docs/|href="https://docs.example.com/help/|ni'
```
Restart the Apache server once configured:
```
sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
NOTE
Replace `/docs` and `/api` with the exact values configured under **Subfolder path** and **Site API path** in the Document360 portal.
---
## How to set up sitemap generation
The sitemap prefix stays the same except for the language code (en, fr, de, and so on).
```
RequestHeader set Host example.document360.io
RequestHeader set requested-by proxy
ProxyPass https://example.document360.io/sitemap.xml.en
ProxyPassReverse https://example.document360.io/sitemap.xml.en
```
---
## What happens next
Once Apache is configured, your knowledge base site is live on your custom subfolder. The existing Document360 URL continues to serve requests as well — for example, both `example.document360.io` and `example.com/docs` will point to your knowledge base site. This causes duplicate content in search engines like Google and Bing.
To prevent duplicate content, enable the **Restrict subdomain access** toggle under **Settings** > **Knowledge base site** > **Custom domain** > **Subfolder hosting**. Make sure a canonical domain is configured before enabling this — once enabled, your Document360 subdomain automatically redirects to your canonical domain.
---
## Best practices
- Enable all five required Apache modules (`proxy`, `proxy_http`, `headers`, `substitute`, `proxy_html`) before configuring location blocks, or proxying and rewriting won't work.
- Keep the Subfolder path and Site API path identical between the Document360 portal and your Apache configuration to avoid broken routing.
- Use the `substitute` rules consistently across the home page, article/category, and API location blocks to avoid mixed `/docs` and `/help` links on the live site.
- Set up the `/v1/en` redirect for article preview links early, since mismatched preview links can otherwise cause confusion for content authors.
## Related
- [Nginx server](/nginx-server.md)