Node-red URL via port not working for apache httpd VirtualHost

General
1

I'm moving to a new (modern) linux AWS server, and it's going well. I can run node-red and access nicely. These are not docker, and guarded now by pm2 (thanks for that).

I also have a HTTPD rewrite rule so the port isn't needed (eg. host.com/bot == host.com:2000).

But for some reason when I add VirtualHosts, which point to the same IP address where node-red is running, two thing happen:

  1. I cannot get the port access to work (eg. vhost.com:2000)
  2. The redirect works but only to the main host (eg. RewriteRule /bot to host.com:2000) vs (Rewrite /bot vhost.com:2000).

On my old linux, these worked and I can't see what is different (except 4 proxy shown below)

Here is one of my Vhost files that works (host.com is main, vhost.com is virtual one)

<VirtualHost *:443>
  Servername vhost.com
  SSLCerts ...
  
  ProxyRequests Off
  ProxyPreserveHost On
  SSLProxyEngine on

   # node-red
   # /bot -> :2000
   RewriteRule ^/bot$ bot/ [L,R=301]
   ProxyPass "/bot" "https://host.com:2000"
   ProxyPassReverse "/bot" "https://host.com:2000"

# VERSUS old linux which worked:
   ProxyPass "/bot" "https://vhost.com:2000"
<VirtualHost>

NOTE: on the new apache httpd 2.4.66 (dec 2025) they require

   SSLProxyVerify none
   SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
   SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
   SSLProxyCheckPeerExpire off

And my ancient AWS (2.2.34 Nov 2017) didn't use these.

Any ideas?

NOTE: Things work with the rewrite, but I have old links that use the port and I'm trying to keep them working.

NOTE2: I also don't know if the port definitions on AWS are somehow not assigned to the vhosts? Although the firewall doesn't know about my vhosts (just DNS addresses)