rjrivero/rproxy repository overview

⁠Nginx reverse proxy

Nginx-based, HTTP reverse proxy server intended to aggregate different backend services behind a common domain URL, to avoid problems with cookies, CORS or untrusted certificates.

To build the container:

git clone https://github.com/rjrivero/docker-rproxy.git
cd docker-rproxy

docker build -t rproxy .

To run:

docker run --rm -p 8080:80 --name rproxy rproxy

The container exposes ports 80 and 443.

⁠Volumes

The embedded nginx server uses:

• /opt/www/ as document root.
• /etc/nginx/proxy.d/ for advanced configuration files.
• /etc/nginx/rewrite.d/ for top-level rewrite rules

⁠Users

The nginx service is run by user nginx, group nginx. The uid and gid are defined in the official Docker Nginx container⁠ and currently are 104 and 107 respectively.

Any file you mount at /opt/www must be readable by that user; as well as any particular configuration you mount under /etc/nginx/proxy.d or /etc/nginx/rewrite.d.

⁠Configuration

The nginx server can be configured using environment variables to proxy different locations to different backend servers. The container recognizes the following environment variables patterns:

• PROXY_DOCROOT = PATH: The path to the document root folder, /opt/www by default.
• PROXY_LOCATION_xxx = URL: proxies any request under /xxx to URL/xxx
• PROXY_LOCATION_xxx = URL;PATH: tries to serve any request under /xxx with static files from PATH. If no file is found, proxies the request to URL/xxx
• PROXY_LOCATION_xxx = ;PATH: Serves request with static content under PATH

for instance,

• PROXY_LOCATION_REMOTE="http://other.server:3000⁠" will forward any request under /remote to http://other.server:3000/remote⁠
• PROXY_LOCATION_CONFIG="http://other.server:3000;/opt/www⁠" will try to serve any request under /config with static files in /opt/www, and fallback to http://other.server:3000/config⁠ if no static file is found.
• PROXY_LOCATION_AUTH=;/opt/www/auth/test will serve requests to /auth with static resources under /opt/www/auth/test

You can also use an empty location (PROXY_LOCATION_=...) to proxy requests to the root location (/).

⁠Additional config

If you need more advanced proxy settings, you can drop a configuration file ending in .conf inside /etc/nginx/proxy.d or /etc/nginx/rewrite.d, and they will be read at startup.

The difference between those locations is that files in rewrite.d are read before files in proxy.d. This is intended to make sure that rewrite configuration happens before location configuration, so the locations already receive the rewritten URLs.

For instance, this config uses resolvers⁠ and variables to dynamically build and resolve the backend server's URL:

chromebox:~/rproxy$ cat dispatch.conf 

# Match your parameters in the URI
location ~ ^/dispatch/(?P<tenant>[a-zA-Z0-9\-]+)/(?P<command>.*)$ {

    # Set your DNS resolver - required
    resolver 8.8.8.8;

    # Rewrite your proxy URL
    set $full_url "http://${tenant}.domain.com/${command}${is_args}${args}";

    # Set any proxy parameters you wish
    proxy_http_version          1.1;
    proxy_pass_request_headers  on;
    proxy_redirect              off;
    proxy_connect_timeout       5s;
    proxy_request_buffering     off;

    # Proxy the request to the dynamic server
    proxy_pass                  $full_url;
    break;
}

Couple this with a dns resolver with dynamic backends, such as powerdns⁠, and you can have a poor man's database-backed reverse proxy.