Collabora Online Installation Guide

Collabora Online
Installation Guide
Collabora Productivity
Version 2020-07-06
Collabora Productivity Ltd. The Platinum Building, St John's Innovation Park, Cambridge, CB4 0DS, UK
Registered in England and Wales with company number 08644931
Telephone +44 (0)1223 362967 sales@collaboraoffice.com https://www.collaboraoffice.com
Collabora Online Installation Guide
Table of Contents
ChangeLog.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Installation from packages...................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
What is $customer_hash in the Following Text..................................................................................................................... 5
How to Obtain $customer_hash if You are a Partner......................................................................................................... 5
The Installation Procedure.................................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Distro-specific Installation Instructions................................................................................................................................................ 5
Debian 8..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Debian 9..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Debian 10................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Ubuntu 16.04.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Ubuntu 18.04........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Ubuntu 20.04.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
RHEL 7 / CentOS 7 (at least 7.2)............................................................................................................................................................... 7
RHEL 8 / CentOS 8............................................................................................................................................................................................. 8
SLES 12 / openSUSE Leap 42.3................................................................................................................................................................ 8
SLES 15 / openSUSE Leap 15.x.................................................................................................................................................................. 8
How to upgrade............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Localization..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Spelling dictionaries and thesauri.............................................................................................................................................................. 9
Docker image..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Dockerfile......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Build Docker image................................................................................................................................................................................................. 10
Create a container from the image and run it................................................................................................................................. 10
Other optional environment variables that you can pass to collabora/online...........................................10
Fonts........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Updating ‘systemplate’............................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Configuration..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Network settings....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
SSL configuration..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13
Security settings....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Backend storage configurations................................................................................................................................................................. 14
Logging.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 14
Performance.................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 15
Allowed dictionary languages........................................................................................................................................................................ 15
Admin Console............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 15
Other settings.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Proxy settings.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Reverse proxy with Apache 2 webserver............................................................................................................................................... 16
Configure Collabora Online...................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Required Apache2 modules.................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Reverse proxy settings in Apache2 config (SSL).................................................................................................................... 17
Reverse proxy settings in Apache2 config (SSL termination)...................................................................................18
Reverse proxy with Nginx webserver........................................................................................................................................................ 19
Load balancing.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20
Load balancing example with HAProxy........................................................................................................................................ 20
Load balancing example with Nginx............................................................................................................................................... 21
robots.txt........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 22
2
ChangeLog
ChangeLog
Date Change
2016-07-04 Initial revision
2016-07-22 Security warning: WOPI host and WOPI client (loolwsd) should not run on the same domain.
2016-08-05 Removed ownCloud section (moved to a separate document), switch to Collabora Office 5.1.
2016-08-12 Rephrased instructions in Installation from Packages section.
2016-09-21 New SSL configuration section.
2016-09-26 Typo fixes in repo URLs, Apache2 reverse proxy setting update, HAProxy config update.
2016-10-12 HAProxy better explained, fixed typos in repo URLs.
2016-11-15 Typo fixes. In Cent OS 7 section note that Cent OS 7.2 is required. In Apache2 reverse proxy section:
ProxyPreserveHost On.
2016-11-23 Apache2 reverse proxy config updated.
2016-12-07 Collabora Online 2.0 released, logging settings changed.
2017-05-02 Collabora Online 2.1 released.
2017-05-09 Instructions added to create self-signed SSL certificate.
2017-06-01 Removed unsupported openSUSE versions. Clarification: Docker is an alternative to packages.

Mentioned loolconfig for setting up secure password for the Admin Console.
2017-06-13 Fixed wrong HAProxy configuration sample.
2017-07-12 Document loolwsd-systemplate-setup script
2017-08-22 Added support for Debian 9, RHEL 6 / CentOS 6, and SLES11 SP4
2017-09-12 Added a chapter about installing fonts. Added a note about fonts to Docker chapter. Mentioned the
trigger that updates systemplate upon updating of other packages. Added a section about Nginx reverse
proxy.
2017-09-22 Added "Other optional environment variables that you can pass to collabora/code" section.
2017-10-25 Added a section about Nginx load balancer
2017-11-01 Load balancer config corrections
2018-01-15 Added a footnote about binding to privileged ports
2018-01-31 Collabora Online 3.0 released. New sections: Localization, Spelling dictionaries and thesauri, Error:
Reference source not found, Allowed dictionary languages. Admin console authentication supports PAM.
SSL cipher list. IPv6 support.
2018-02-15 Add hint about robots.txt
2018-04-25 Document seccomp and capabilities security settings. Added a note about the necessity of using the
same version on all load balanced nodes. Ubuntu 18.04 is supported.
2018-05-10 Ubuntu 18.04 repositories
2018-05-11 Use of internal dictionaries is possible now
3
Date Change
2018-09-12 Apache2 reverse proxy config for the SSL termination case
2018-10-10 Document net.listen and net.service_root settings (new in 3.4)

Document dictionaries environment variable for docker image.
2019-02-11 Added /hosting/capabilities to reverse proxy settings.
2019-02-14 Collabora Online 4.0 released. In repo URLs /3/ was changed to /4.2/.
Documented extra_params environment variable for Docker.
2019-02-28 Collabora Online 4.0.1 released. SLE 11 SP4 support is discontinued. New package repository for SLE 15 /
openSUSE 15.x
2019-05-20 Made WOPISrc-based load balancing in HAproxy/Nginx script the default, as it is supported since 2.1.4.
2020-03-05 Collabora Online 4.2.0 released. Updated repo URLs.
2020-05-03 How to upgrade section

Ubuntu 20.04 supported
2020-06-08 Corrected command to update the systemplate for Collabora Online 4.2
2020-07-06 Further adjusted command to update the systemplate
4
Installation from packages

Collabora Productivity provide signed binary packages for 64-bit Linux distributions. Currently
Debian 8, Debian 9, Debian 10, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, RHEL 7 / CentOS 7, RHEL 8 /
CentOS 8, SLES 12, SLES 15 and openSUSE Leap 15.x are supported.
What is $customer_hash in the Following Text

In the following document, we use “$customer_hash” placeholder. Any time you will see it in the
instructions, please use the real ID that was provided to you by Collabora Productivity or their
partner. These URLs are customer-specific and must not be shared or disclosed.
The “$customer_hash” looks like “Example-413539ece39485afc35b4a469adfde0a279d2fd2 ” (this

is not a working example), and is specific to you.
How to Obtain $customer_hash if You are a Partner

If you are Collabora’s Partner, you can obtain the ID from the Partner portal. Just log into the Partner
portal at https://support.collaboraoffice.com/, and you will see this information in the form:
Collabora Online
Your secret URL key: Example-413539ece39485afc35b4a469adfde0a279d2fd2.
The Installation Procedure

On all the supported platforms, the installation procedure consist of three steps:
• Import of the signing key

• The installation itself
• Starting of the service, and enabling it for auto-start after reboot
The following chapter contains instructions for the supported Linux distributions. After you have
installed loolwsd (the Collabora Online’s websocket daemon), please continue with the chapter
Configuration.
Distro-specific Installation Instructions

To install Collabora Office you need system administrator (root) privileges. The following command
line examples are supposed to be entered from a system administrator (root) account. Alternatively
you can use sudo.
export customer_hash=Example-413539ece39485afc35b4a469adfde0a279d2fd2
Debian 8
Please type the following commands into the shell as root:
# import the signing key
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0C54D189F4BA284D
# add the repository URL to /etc/apt/sources.list
5
echo "deb https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-debian8-

$customer_hash ./" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
# perform the installation
apt update && apt install loolwsd collabora-online-brand
After successful installation, please follow the chapter Configuration.
Debian 9

Debian 10

Ubuntu 16.04
echo "deb https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-ubuntu1604-

6
Ubuntu 18.04

Ubuntu 20.04

RHEL 7 / CentOS 7 (at least 7.2)

wget https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-centos7-
$customer_hash/repodata/repomd.xml.key && rpm --import repomd.xml.key
# add the repository URL to yum
yum-config-manager --add-repo
https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-centos7-
$customer_hash
yum install loolwsd collabora-online-brand
7
RHEL 8 / CentOS 8
wget https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-centos7-
# add the repository URL to yum
yum-config-manager --add-repo
https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-centos8-
$customer_hash
yum install loolwsd collabora-online-brand
SLES 12 / openSUSE Leap 42.3

wget https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-opensuse-
# add the repository URL to zypper
zypper ar -t yum "https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-

opensuse-$customer_hash" "Collabora Online"
# add also C++ repository for the POCO libraries:
zypper ar 'http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/libraries:/c_c++/
openSUSE_Leap_42.3/devel:libraries:c_c++.repo'
zypper ref && zypper in loolwsd collabora-online-brand
SLES 15 / openSUSE Leap 15.x

wget https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-opensuse15-
# add the repository URL to zypper
zypper ar -t yum "https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-

opensuse15-$customer_hash" "Collabora Online"
# add also C++ repository for the POCO libraries:
zypper ar 'http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/libraries:/c_c++/
openSUSE_Leap_15.0/devel:libraries:c_c++.repo'
8
zypper ref && zypper in loolwsd collabora-online-brand
How to upgrade
If you are upgrading from Collabora Online 4.0.x or earlier version, follow these steps:
1. Backup /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml configuration file.
2. Remove loolwsd and collaboraoffice* packages.
3. Change the version number in the repository URL, e.g. from 4.0 to 4.2.
4. Install loolwsd package.
5. Restore /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml configuration file.
Localization
For localization of tunnelled dialogs, you need to install Collabora Office language resources. They
are not direct dependencies of loolwsd. For example for German dialogs on Debian/Ubuntu:
apt install collaboraoffice*de*
Spelling dictionaries and thesauri

Collabora Online version 3.2.2 and higher can use internal spelling dictionaries and thesauri
(collaboraoffice5.3-dict-* packages). Collabora Online can use system spelling dictionaries and
thesauri, too, that are located in /usr/share/hunspell and /usr/share/mythes directories. See also:
Allowed dictionary languages
9
Docker image
As an alternative to native packages, Collabora Productivity provide scripts and Dockerfiles to
create a Collabora Online Docker image. You either need native packages, or the Docker image, not
both! Docker images can be created on demand from the latest version of Collabora Online and the
underlying system components. The repository is on GitHub.
https://github.com/CollaboraOnline/Docker
Dockerfile
The provided Dockerfile is a working sample. Feel free to add more packages to it, for example more
fonts, if you need them.
Build Docker image

Please follow the instructions in README.md of the above repository.
Create a container from the image and run it

You need to pass the domain name or IP address of your WOPI host in an environment variable.
Interactive mode:
docker run -t -i -p 9980:9980 -e "domain=your\\.wopihost\\.com" collabora/online
It will log to console.
Daemon mode:
docker run -t -d -p 9980:9980 -e "domain=your\\.wopihost\\.com" --restart always

collabora/online
You can follow logs with:
docker logs --follow <container name>
Read more about logging at https://docs.docker.com/engine/admin/logging/overview/.
Other optional environment variables that you can pass to collabora/online

username User name for the Admin Console
password Password for the Admin Console
When this environment variable is set (is not “”), then startup script
DONT_GEN_SSL_CERT will not generate a new SSL certificate signed by a dummy CA. It is
useful, if you want to use your own SSL certificate for some reason.
When this environment variable is set (is not “”), then startup script
cert_domain will generate a new SSL certificate signed by a dummy CA for this
domain, not for localhost
When this environment variable is set (is not “”), then its value will
be used as server name in /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml . Without this,
server_name
CODE may not deliver a correct host for the websocket connection in
case of a proxy in front of it.
dictionaries By default only limited set of spelling dictionaries and thesauri are
10
Docker image
configured for Collabora Online, mainly for performance reasons. The

default set of languages is the following: de_DE en_GB en_US es_ES
fr_FR it nl pt_BR pt_PT ru. With the dictionaries environment
variable you can change this list. The dictionaries environment
variable should contain the space separated list of language codes
(optionally followed by country code). In order to save resources, it
makes sense to load only those dictionaries that are actually needed.
You can pass extra loolwsd command line parameter via this
environment variable. For example, if you want to start loolwsd
without SSL, when you test or develop, the syntax is: -e
extra_params
"extra_params=--o:ssl.enable=false" . To learn about all possible
options, refer to the self-documented /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml
configuration file in the Docker image.
Fonts
Collabora Online uses Collabora Office as its backend, which comes with a large variety of free fonts,
see the list below:
• Caladea and Carlito, which are metric-compatible with Cambria and Calibri
• Déja Vu
• Emoji One
• Gentium
• Google Open Sans and PT Serif
• Google Noto (full Unicode coverage)
• Karla
• Liberation Sans and Liberation Serif, which are metric-compatible with Arial and Times New
Roman
• Linux Libertine G
• Source Code Pro and Source Sans Pro
When you install loolwsd package, the post-install script will look for additional fonts on your
system, and install them for Collabora Online (in the systemplate). If you install fonts to your system
after installing loolwsd, you need to update the systemplate manually (see below).
Updating ‘systemplate’
Each document is isolated in its own chroot jail running its own instance of a LibreOfficeKit
process, and runs as a non-privileged ‘lool’ user. These chroot jails contain only the bare minimum
of files (libraries, fonts, etc.) needed for running Collabora Office (LibreOfficeKit). The template of the
jails is called ‘systemplate’, it is located at /opt/lool/systemplate, and it is generated after
installation of the loolwsd package. The systemplate is also re-generated after installing updates of
packages that are in use in systemplate (on RPM based systems) or after a successful apt update
(on DEB based systems).
However, it is possible that the user wants to build systemplate manually, for example when new
fonts are installed, or a security update of system libraries is deployed by other means. Perform the
following command as root user.
11
In Collabora Online 4.2:
loolwsd-systemplate-setup /opt/lool/systemplate /opt/collaboraoffice6.2 >/dev/null

2>&1
In Collabora Online 4.0:
loolwsd-systemplate-setup /opt/lool/systemplate /opt/collaboraoffice6.0 >/dev/null

2>&1
Configuration
The postinstall script of loolwsd package added a non-privileged user to the system: lool. Collabora
Online service will be run by lool user. Also the service was registered to systemd, enabled on system
start and started. Useful commands:
• systemctl enable loolwsd – enable loolwsd on system start
• systemctl disable loolwsd – disable loolwsd on system start
• systemctl status loolwsd – check status of loolwsd
• systemctl stop loolwsd – stop loolwsd service
• systemctl start loolwsd – start loolwsd service
• systemctl restart loolwsd – stop then start loolwsd service
• journalctl -u loolwsd – read the log produced by loolwsd
Collabora Online has to be configured before use. Most of the options have sensible defaults.
Collabora online has layered configuration, which means that settings are read from
/etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml but can be overridden by command line switches (for example in
systemd’s loolwsd.service file). By using --o:name=value the setting called 'name' can be replaced
by 'value'. For example: --o:per_document.max_concurrency=12 . This will override the
max_concurrency to 12, regardless of what the XML has set.
Default configuration entries and values are set before loading the configuration file from disk. This
ensures that an upgrade to the server with new configuration entries will not break the server when
the XML is not upgraded, rather, the server will fallback to the defaults when it fails to find the entry
in the XML.
The loolwsd service has to be restarted after a change in configuration.
Network settings
Collabora Online 3 can use IPv4, IPv6 or both. By default it uses both. See the net.proto setting
config file.
From version 3.4 loolwsd server can bind to localhost only, which makes sense, when it is used
behind a reverse proxy. The corresponding setting is net.listen .
From version 3.4 it is possible to use a different service root than the toplevel. If the rules of your
organization do not permit running services in the root, you can use a subpath for it, like
12
Configuration
https://example.org/IT/CollaboraOnline by setting /IT/CollaboraOnline as the net.service_root in

the configuration file.
SSL configuration
Collabora Online uses WOPI protocol, which mandates SSL. However, it is possible to run Collabora
Online server without SSL, it is configurable. Basically there are 3 modes:
1. SSL
2. SSL termination
3. No SSL
When SSL is enabled, in /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml the path to SSL key, SSL certificate and SSL CA
certificate has to be given in the ssl block. This also implies that it is recommended to run loolwsd
from a server which name is in DNS (e.g. hostname.example.com), and it has proper SSL certificate.
Restart loolwsd, check the status of the service, and if it is running, you can try if you can connect to
it via SSL:
curl -v https://hostname.example.com:9980/hosting/discovery
If it fails, you have to debug SSL settings.
For testing purposes it is OK to use self signed certificates. Since Collabora Online 2.1 we no longer
ship self signed certificate for localhost, for security reasons. You can create the necessary files
yourself. The following example creates a certificate for hostname.example.com by a newly created
dummy certificate authority. The resulting .pem files are copied to default configuration directory
of loolwsd.
mkdir -p /opt/ssl/
cd /opt/ssl/
mkdir -p certs/ca
openssl genrsa -out certs/ca/root.key.pem 2048
openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key certs/ca/root.key.pem -days 9131 -out
certs/ca/root.crt.pem -subj "/C=DE/ST=BW/L=Stuttgart/O=Dummy
Authority/CN=Dummy Authority"
mkdir -p certs/{servers,tmp}
mkdir -p "certs/servers/hostname.example.com"
openssl genrsa -out "certs/servers/hostname.example.com/privkey.pem" 2048 -key

"certs/servers/hostname.example.com/privkey.pem"
openssl req -key "certs/servers/hostname.example.com/privkey.pem" -new -sha256 -out

"certs/tmp/hostname.example.com.csr.pem" -subj
"/C=DE/ST=BW/L=Stuttgart/O=Dummy Authority/CN=hostname.example.com"
openssl x509 -req -in certs/tmp/hostname.example.com.csr.pem -CA

certs/ca/root.crt.pem -CAkey certs/ca/root.key.pem -CAcreateserial -out
certs/servers/hostname.example.com/cert.pem -days 9131
mv certs/servers/hostname.example.com/privkey.pem /etc/loolwsd/key.pem
mv certs/servers/hostname.example.com/cert.pem /etc/loolwsd/cert.pem
13
mv certs/ca/root.crt.pem /etc/loolwsd/ca-chain.cert.pem
The SSL termination option in the config file enables integration of Collabora Online with SSL
termination proxies, which handle incoming SSL connections, decrypt the SSL and pass on the
unencrypted request to the server. In this setup only the proxy server has to have proper SSL
settings, Collabora Online server is hidden behind it, and Collabora Online communicates
unencrypted with the proxy.
If you set both enable and termination settings to false in /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml , then
Collabora Online can be used in a HTTP-only environment, without encryption between browser and
server. It is not recommended to use Collabora Online in this mode, but for testing only it is OK.
You can set the list of accepted SSL ciphers with the cipher_list setting. The default cipher list is:
ALL:!ADH:!LOW:!EXP:!MD5:@STRENGTH .
Security settings
In Collabora Online 3.2 and higher, security settings are configurable due to popular demand. It is
allowed running without seccomp and capabilities. There are some significant security trade-offs
here which are now at least configurable. It is recommended to use the defaults. See the security
section in /etc/loolwsd/loowsd.xml .
Backend storage configurations

Currently there are two backend storages are implemented: file system and WOPI.
File system storage is disabled by default, and should not be used in production environment. It is
insecure by nature, because it serves any file that the lool user can read from the local file system,
including /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml, /etc/passwd and so on. It can be used for testing only. To
enable:
<filesystem allow=”true” /> in storage block of loolwsd.xml
or
--o:storage.filesystem[@allow]=true in command line
WOPI on the other hand is the recommended backend storage. WOPI is Web Application Open
Platform Interface, a protocol based on open standard for remote document access with
authentication. Collabora Online accepts connection requests only from trusted WOPI hosts. The
administrator has to list the host names and/or IP addresses of these trusted WOPI hosts in the
storage.wopi block. Please note that connection requests from the same machine are always
accepted.
Logging
See the <logging> section in /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml . Set the log level and verbosity to one of: none
(turns off logging), fatal, critical, error, warning, notice, information, debug, trace. The default log
level is warning. If <color> is set to true, then loolwsd will generate logging information containing
console color codes. It is possible to redirect logs to a file. The trace file defined in <trace> section
provides extra debug information.
14
Configuration
Performance
There are two performance related settings.
One is num_prespawn_children. It is the number of child processes to keep started in advance and
waiting for new clients. More prespawn children consume more memory, but server answers more
quickly to requests under load. The default is 1.
The other is per_document.max_concurrency which limits the number of threads to use while
processing a document. The default here is 4.
Allowed dictionary languages

When there are a lot of spellchecker dictionaries and thesauri installed on a system, it may take too
much time at startup to preload them. Therefore there is a limitation. By default only the following
languages are supported in Collabora Online 3.0 and higher:
de_DE en_GB en_US es_ES fr_FR it pt_BR pt_PT ru
This list is controlled by the allowed_languages setting, you can add or remove language tags as
needed.
Admin Console
You can do live monitoring of all the user sessions running on Collabora Online instance. The Admin
Console URL is: https://hostname:port/loleaflet/dist/admin/admin.html
Port is 9980 by default. It will ask for username and password which is set in the admin_console
block of /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml or by --o:admin_console.username=username and
--o:admin_console.password=password in loolwsd command line. You must set username and
password. Admin Console is disabled if either of these are not set.
Note: in loolwsd 2.1.2 and higher it is possible to set up a password that is stored as salted hash in
the config file, instead of plain text. This is the recommended way to set up password for the Admin
Console. Use the loolconfig utility.
Note: in loolwsd 3.0 and higher there is support for authentication with PAM, if it is set up for
loolwsd in the system. For example, with a simple /etc/pam.d/loolwsd config below, the user which
runs loolwsd ('lool' in production environment) can login to admin console with normal linux
password.
auth required pam_unix.so
account required pam_unix.so
After entering the correct password you should be able to monitor the live documents opened, total
users, memory consumption, document URLs with number of users viewing that document etc. You
can also kill the documents directly from the panel which would result in closing the socket
connection to the respective document.
The admin-console front-end presents and fetches its data via a defined web socket protocol, which
can be used to collect information programatically to integrate with other monitoring and control
solutions. For the websocket protocol details of Admin Console, see the Admin Console section in
the protocol documentation:
15
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/online/tree/loleaflet/README and
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/online/tree/wsd/protocol.txt.
It is simple to subscribe to receive client notifications, query the open documents and change
server settings.
Other settings
See /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml for other settings, everything is documented there.
Proxy settings
Server part of Collabora Online (loolwsd daemon) is listening on port 9980 by default, and clients
should be able to communicate with it through port 9980. Sometimes it is not possible, for example
a corporate firewall can allow only ports of well known services, such as port 80 (HTTP) and port 443
(HTTPS). The loolwsd daemon is configurable. It can use other ports than 9980. Port can be set by the
command line option --port1 . However we cannot use for example port 443, when a web server is
running on the same server, which is already bound to port 443. Reverse proxy setup is also
required, when you would like to setup load balancing.
Reverse proxy with Apache 2 webserver

We assume that loolwsd and Apache2 are running on the same server:
collaboraonline.example.com .
For this to work, you have to setup follow the steps below:
• Set the server name in Collabora Online configuration

• Enable the required Apache2 modules
• Add reverse proxy settings to Apache2 configuration file
Configure Collabora Online

Collabora Online configuration file is /etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml . Look for the setting server_name ,
which is empty by default, and enter the host name here, for example collaboraonline.example.com .
This is necessary, because the proxy will redirect request to localhost . Answers from loolwsd server
must contain the original host name, otherwise the connection will fail.
Required Apache2 modules

Apache2 web server is modular. We need to enable the required modules for this reverse proxy
setup. We can use the a2enmod command to enable modules. If a module has been enabled
already, nothing happens.
• Enable proxy in general: a2enmod proxy
• Enable proxy for HTTP protocol: a2enmod proxy_http
• Enable SSL support: a2enmod proxy_connect
• Enable proxy of websockets: a2enmod proxy_wstunnel
1 If you want to bind to a privileged port (below 1024), you need to add the following capability:
sudo setcap CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE=+eip /usr/bin/loolwsd
16
Proxy settings
On CentOS / RHEL there is no a2enmod available. Enabling the modules has to be done by adjusting
a config file and add the LoadModule oneself. (See here.)
Reverse proxy settings in Apache2 config (SSL)

These lines should be inserted into <VirtualHost> definition of the site.
########################################
# Reverse proxy for Collabora Online #
########################################
AllowEncodedSlashes NoDecode
SSLProxyEngine On
ProxyPreserveHost On
# cert is issued for collaboraonline.example.com and we proxy to localhost
SSLProxyVerify None
SSLProxyCheckPeerCN Off
SSLProxyCheckPeerName Off
# static html, js, images, etc. served from loolwsd
# loleaflet is the client part of LibreOffice Online
ProxyPass /loleaflet https://127.0.0.1:9980/loleaflet retry=0
ProxyPassReverse /loleaflet https://127.0.0.1:9980/loleaflet
# WOPI discovery URL
ProxyPass /hosting/discovery https://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/discovery

retry=0
ProxyPassReverse /hosting/discovery https://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/discovery
# Capabilities
ProxyPass /hosting/capabilities https://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/capabilities

retry=0
ProxyPassReverse /hosting/capabilities https://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/capabilities
# Main websocket
ProxyPassMatch "/lool/(.*)/ws$" wss://127.0.0.1:9980/lool/$1/ws nocanon
# Admin Console websocket
ProxyPass /lool/adminws wss://127.0.0.1:9980/lool/adminws
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# Download as, Fullscreen presentation and Image upload operations
ProxyPass /lool https://127.0.0.1:9980/lool
ProxyPassReverse /lool https://127.0.0.1:9980/lool
Reverse proxy settings in Apache2 config (SSL termination)

These lines should be inserted into <VirtualHost> definition of the site. Basically the configuration
is the same as above, but in this case we have HTTP-only connection between the proxy and the
Collabora Online server.
########################################
# Reverse proxy for Collabora Online #
########################################
AllowEncodedSlashes NoDecode
ProxyPreserveHost On
# static html, js, images, etc. served from loolwsd
# loleaflet is the client part of LibreOffice Online
ProxyPass /loleaflet http://127.0.0.1:9980/loleaflet retry=0
ProxyPassReverse /loleaflet http://127.0.0.1:9980/loleaflet
ProxyPass /hosting/discovery http://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/discovery

retry=0
ProxyPassReverse /hosting/discovery http://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/discovery
# Capabilities
ProxyPass /hosting/capabilities http://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/capabilities

retry=0
ProxyPassReverse /hosting/capabilities http://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/capabilities
# Main websocket
ProxyPassMatch "/lool/(.*)/ws$" ws://127.0.0.1:9980/lool/$1/ws nocanon
ProxyPass /lool/adminws ws://127.0.0.1:9980/lool/adminws
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Proxy settings
# Download as, Fullscreen presentation and Image upload operations
ProxyPass /lool http://127.0.0.1:9980/lool
ProxyPassReverse /lool http://127.0.0.1:9980/lool
Reverse proxy with Nginx webserver

Add a new server block to your nginx config for collaboraonline.example.com.
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name collaboraonline.example.com;
ssl_certificate /path/to/certficate;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/key;
# static files
location ^~ /loleaflet {
proxy_pass https://127.0.0.1:9980;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
location ^~ /hosting/discovery {
# Capabilities
location ^~ /hosting/capabilities {
# main websocket
location ~ ^/lool/(.*)/ws$ {
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
19
proxy_read_timeout 36000s;
# download, presentation and image upload
location ~ ^/lool {
location ^~ /lool/adminws {
proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
proxy_read_timeout 36000s;
Load balancing
In order for Collaborative Editing to function correctly, it is vital to ensure that all users editing the
same document end up being served by the same Collabora Office instance. Using the WOPI
protocol, the https URL includes a unique identifier (WOPISrc) for use with this document. Thus load
balancing can be done by using WOPISrc – ensuring that all URLs that contain the same WOPISrc are
sent to the same Collabora Office instance.
Note: All load balanced nodes must run the same version of Collabora Online. Currently it is not
possible to run different versions on different nodes, e.g. upgrade Collabora Online on one node, and
leave the old version on another node. The WOPI discovery.xml served by Collabora Online through
the load balancer contains version specific URLs.
Load balancing example with HAProxy

In this example we will do load balancing between two Collabora Online server instances, which are
running in docker containers. We set a custom HTTP header (X-HAProxy-loolwsd) based on the
incoming URL. Load balancing is based on this X-HAProxy-loolwsd header.
The browser reaches the proxy with HTTPS protocol. The proxy terminates the HTTPS connection and
passes traffic to backends via HTTP. Therefore in Collabora Online’s config file, in
/etc/loolwsd/loolwsd.xml , or in the command line which starts loolwsd daemon, SSL should be
disabled, and SSL termination should be enabled.
20
Proxy settings
Let’s add the following blocks to /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg :
frontend loolwsd
bind *:443 ssl crt /path/to/your/certificate_and_key.pem
http-request set-header X-HAProxy-loolwsd %[url_param(WOPISrc)]
mode http
default_backend loolwsd
backend loolwsd
timeout tunnel 3600s
mode http
balance hdr(X-HAProxy-loolwsd)
server loolwsd01 127.0.0.1:9993
server loolwsd02 127.0.0.1:9994
Start Docker containers as described above, with -p 127.0.0.1:9993:9980 and -p 127.0.0.1:9994:9980 .
Load balancing example with Nginx

Just like in the previous section (HAProxy), the Nginx load balancer also utilizes the WOPISrc URL
parameter. In this example SSL settings are managed by Certbot (see https://letsencrypt.org/). The
load balancer server listens on standard HTTPS port 443, and HTTP port 80 is redirected to HTTPS
port 443. The loolwsd servers are reached through port 9980 directly (private network). The address
for the outside world (for WOPI hosts) is loolwsd.public.example.com.
upstream loolwsd {
zone loolwsd 64k;
hash $arg_WOPISrc;
server loolwsd1.private:9980;
server loolwsd2.private:9980;
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/1b255632-ce4b-4581-9e80-
16f701c27034.pub.cloud.scaleway.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/1b255632-ce4b-4581-9e80-
16f701c27034.pub.cloud.scaleway.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
21
if ($scheme != "https") {
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
} # managed by Certbot
server_name loolwsd.public.example.com;
location / {
proxy_pass http://loolwsd;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
client_max_body_size 0;
robots.txt
When you use Collabora Online behind a reverse proxy, add Disallow: /loleaflet/* to your robots.txt
file.
22

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Collabora Online

2016-07-04 Initial revision

2016-08-12 Rephrased instructions in Installation from Packages section.

2016-09-21 New SSL configuration section.

2016-10-12 HAProxy better explained, fixed typos in repo URLs.

2016-11-23 Apache2 reverse proxy config updated.

2016-12-07 Collabora Online 2.0 released, logging settings changed.

2017-05-02 Collabora Online 2.1 released.

2017-05-09 Instructions added to create self-signed SSL certificate.

2017-06-01 Removed unsupported openSUSE versions. Clarification: Docker is an alternative to packages.

2017-06-13 Fixed wrong HAProxy configuration sample.

2017-07-12 Document loolwsd-systemplate-setup script

2017-10-25 Added a section about Nginx load balancer

2017-11-01 Load balancer config corrections

2018-01-15 Added a footnote about binding to privileged ports

2018-02-15 Add hint about robots.txt

2018-05-10 Ubuntu 18.04 repositories

2018-05-11 Use of internal dictionaries is possible now

2018-10-10 Document net.listen and net.service_root settings (new in 3.4)

2019-02-11 Added /hosting/capabilities to reverse proxy settings.

2020-03-05 Collabora Online 4.2.0 released. Updated repo URLs.

2020-05-03 How to upgrade section

2020-07-06 Further adjusted command to update the systemplate

Installation from packages

What is $customer_hash in the Following Text

The “$customer_hash” looks like “Example-413539ece39485afc35b4a469adfde0a279d2fd2 ” (this

How to Obtain $customer_hash if You are a Partner

Your secret URL key: Example-413539ece39485afc35b4a469adfde0a279d2fd2.

The Installation Procedure

• Import of the signing key

Distro-specific Installation Instructions

# import the signing key

apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0C54D189F4BA284D

# add the repository URL to /etc/apt/sources.list

echo "deb https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-debian8-

# perform the installation

apt update && apt install loolwsd collabora-online-brand

After successful installation, please follow the chapter Configuration.

# import the signing key

apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0C54D189F4BA284D

# add the repository URL to /etc/apt/sources.list

echo "deb https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-debian9-

# perform the installation

apt update && apt install loolwsd collabora-online-brand

After successful installation, please follow the chapter Configuration.

# import the signing key

apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0C54D189F4BA284D

# add the repository URL to /etc/apt/sources.list

echo "deb https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-debian10-

# perform the installation

apt update && apt install loolwsd collabora-online-brand

After successful installation, please follow the chapter Configuration.

# import the signing key

apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0C54D189F4BA284D

# add the repository URL to /etc/apt/sources.list

echo "deb https://collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/4.2/customer-ubuntu1604-

# perform the installation

apt update && apt install loolwsd collabora-online-brand

After successful installation, please follow the chapter Configuration.

apt install collaboraofficede