Configure NGINX as reverse proxy

Basic configuration for NGINX as a reverse proxy is very simple. To pass URLs like http://example.com/service to that service on a LAN, you just need to add this entry to an appropriate configuration file within a server directive listening on the appropriate port. To proxy typical HTTP requests, that would be port 80.

server {
    listen 80;
    location /service/ {
        proxy_pass http://192.168.1.55:8080; 
    }
}

So when a request comes to the proxy server for a URL starting with /service, the server running on the machine with IP 192.168.1.55 listening at port 8080 receives the request. To proxy requests for multiple different endpoints, you can add additional location directives to your configuration file.

In my home ‘production’ environment I use NGINX to proxy requests to my local DNS admin panel, to my CheckMK instance, and to my personal wiki for managing configuration and how-to notes.

More details from NGINX documentation here: NGINX Reverse Proxy.

Tags: devops nginx