In this blog, we will Setup Nginx as a Reverse Proxy for Apache Tomcat running on different servers

Requirement:

1. Two Ubuntu Server
2. Apache installed on one ubuntu server
3. Nginx installed on one ubuntu server

Install Apache2

sudo apt-get install apache2

sudo service apache2 start

By default, it is running on port 80, open your browser http://yourip

You will see the default page of apache ubuntu server.

Now to check this url is running on which server

1. Right click on your page -> Inspect -> Click on Network -> make sure All is selected as shown below

2. Reload the page -> you will see your ip -> click on your ip ->Click Headers

You will see that is running on apache server

Edit Apache default configuration

1. sudo vi /ect/apache2/ports.conf and make your configuration like this or you can use the port as per your requirement.
2. If you <VirtualHOst 127.0.0.1:8080> — this will not work if your instance is in private subnet or private IP
3. 127.0.0.1 points to the loopback device
4. 0.0.0.0 is listen on all interfaces (`lo0`, `eth0`, `eth1`, etc)

# If you just change the port or add more ports here, you will likely also
# have to change the VirtualHost statement in
# /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

<VirtualHost 0.0.0.0:8080>

ServerAdmin [email protected]
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

2. sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

Change the VirtualHost to run on port 8080. All other setting remains same

<VirtualHost 0.0.0.0:8080>

3. Restart Apache Server

NGINX Configuration

1. sudo apt-get install nginx
2. sudo service nginx start
3. Open your browser and you will see the default NGinx home page
4. NGinx also runs on default port 80

Configure it to use as a proxy for apache server

1. cd /etc/nginx/conf.d
2. sudo vi proxy.conf
3. Configure DNS for your EC2 instance where nginx server is running and put that domain name in tag “server_name”

upstream testname {
 server ipofapacheserver:8080 fail_timeout=0;
}

server {
   listen       80;
   server_name domainname_of_nginxserver;

location / {
       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;
       proxy_pass http://testname;
       proxy_read_timeout 90;
       proxy_http_version 1.1;
       proxy_request_buffering off;
   }
}

Configure proxy.conf file if HTTPS is enabled

upstream testname {
server ipofapacheserver:8080 fail_timeout=0;
}
server {
    #listen       80;
   server_name domainname_of_nginxserver;
location / {
       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;
       proxy_pass http://testname;
       proxy_read_timeout 90;
       proxy_http_version 1.1;
       proxy_request_buffering off;
   }

listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/devopstest1.kpd-i.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/devopstest1.kpd-i.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
    include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot

}

server {
    if ($host = www.devopstest1.kpd-i.com) {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    } # managed by Certbot

if ($host = devopstest1.kpd-i.com) {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    } # managed by Certbot

listen       80;
    server_name  devopstest1.kpd-i.com www.devopstest1.kpd-i.com;
    return 404; # managed by Certbot

}

3. sudo nginx -t

ubuntu@ip-11–0–11–165:/etc/nginx/conf.d$ sudo nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

4. Restart or reload nginx

5. Now browse url —  http://yourip — this will redirect to apache home page and do the above steps to check which server it is running on , you will see the nginx server

Below is my security group setting for this EC2 instance — Make sure port 80 is open