configure-nginx

Configure Nginx

Set up Nginx as a web server and reverse proxy with SSL termination and security hardening.

When to Use

• Serving static files (HTML, CSS, JS) in production
• Reverse proxying to backend services (Node.js, Python, Go, R/Shiny)
• Terminating SSL/TLS with Let's Encrypt certificates
• Load balancing across multiple backend instances
• Adding rate limiting and security headers

Inputs

• Required: Deployment target (Docker container or bare metal)
• Required: Backend service(s) to proxy (host:port)
• Optional: Domain name for SSL
• Optional: Static file directory

Procedure

Step 1: Basic Reverse Proxy

nginx.conf:

events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
    upstream app {
        server app:3000;
    }

    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name example.com;

        location / {
            proxy_pass http://app;
            proxy_set_header Host $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;
        }
    }
}

Docker Compose service:

services:
  nginx:
    image: nginx:1.27-alpine
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:ro
    depends_on:
      - app

Got: Requests to port 80 are forwarded to the app service.

Step 2: Static File Serving

server {
    listen 80;
    root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    index index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }

    location /assets/ {
        expires 1y;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
    }

    location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico|svg|woff2?)$ {
        expires 6M;
        add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }
}

Step 3: SSL/TLS with Let's Encrypt

Using certbot with the webroot method:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;

    location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
        root /var/www/certbot;
    }

    location / {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    }
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.com;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://app;
        proxy_set_header Host $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;
    }
}