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Installing mod_cloudflare For Apache HTTPd 2.4 On Debian 8 (Jessie) Via Aptitude Repository

[Update on 2019-09-19] Warning: From Debian 9 (stretch) upwards, according to the official documentation Cloudflare has dropped support for mod_cloudflare. Instead they recommend replacing it with the new alternative: the official Apache HTTPd module mod_remoteip.

Hi!

If you are using the Cloudflare proxy functionality, you will find that your web server will end up only working with Cloudflare's IPs instead of the visitors'. After quite some time I thought that there has to be a better way to go about this, and I found mod_cloudflare, a solution officially developed by Cloudflare themselves.

When I was looking at the official Cloudflare documentation on how to install mod_cloudflare for Apache 2.4 on Debian 8 (Jessie) today, I was disappointed to find that they were only recommending manual ways: installing a .deb package or compiling the module yourself.

Luckily I found a guide on how to accomplish the installation with the standard apt-get / aptitude tool for Debian / Ubuntu.

This is how:

1. Add the aptitude repository to a new sources list file, e.g. at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudflare-main.list - with this content:

   deb http://pkg.cloudflare.com/ jessie main

2. Download the Cloudflare repository key and add it to the aptitude known keys:

   # wget https://pkg.cloudflare.com/pubkey.gpg
   # apt-key add pubkey.gpg
   # rm pubkey.gpg

3. Update the aptitude cache:

   # aptitude update

4. Look at which packages are available in the new repository:

   # grep ^Package: /var/lib/apt/lists/pkg.cloudflare.com_dists_jessie_main_binary-amd64_Packages

5. Install mod_cloudflare:

   # aptitude install libapache2-mod-cloudflare

6. Restart the Apache HTTPd service:

   # service apache2 restart

Hopefully this way of installing will enable everyone to update / maintain it much more easily and with less one-time use packages installed.

Additionally, this could prove even more useful for people who want to install more Cloudflare packages.

I am confident that this method also works for Ubuntu and other versions of Debian - just replace the "jessie" part in the aptitude sources list file with your distribution major release codename (like "wheezy" for Debian 7 or "vivid" for Ubuntu 15.04).

Thanks for reading!

Original source: https://emtunc.org/blog/01/2016/installing-mod_cloudflare-ubuntu-14-04-apache-server/