Skip to main content

Setting up NGINX

This tutorial will guide you through the steps to reverse proxy from the Webserver VM to another VM.

For all steps replace ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN with the subdomain you will configure in Cloudflare DNS.

Prerequisites:​

  1. Sudo access to the ABAIR Webserver VM. (See Server List)

Creating an NGINX config file for Your Project​

1. Sign into to the Webserver VM as a sudo user​

ssh USERNAME@srv.abair.ie -p 22102

2. Navigate to the NGINX sites directory /etc/nginx/sites-available/​

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available/

3. Create/edit your projects file with the following command​

sudo nano ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie

4. Copy the following into this file, replacing​

  • YOUR_PORT_HERE with the port your app is served on.
  • YOUR_VM_ADDRESS_HERE with the local VM address your app is running on. (ie. services is 10.0.0.2)
  • ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN with the same subdomain name as before.
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie;
    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
        listen 443 ssl;
        listen [::]:443 ssl;
        server_name ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie;
    
        ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/abair.ie/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/abair.ie/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot

        access_log /etc/nginx/log/access_ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie;
        error_log /etc/nginx/log/error_ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie;

        location / {
                proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                proxy_set_header   Host      $http_host;
                proxy_pass         http://YOUR_VM_ADDRESS_HERE:YOUR_PORT_HERE;
       	}
}
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie

6. Check the NGINX config files are set up ok​

sudo nginx -t

You should see:

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

7. Reload NGINX​

sudo systemctl reload nginx

8. Check your site is runnung at ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie​

If you configured Cloudflare DNS for your project and ran it on the port which you enabled, then you should see it at ABAIR_APP_SUBDOMAIN.abair.ie.