Configuring Nginx Reverse Proxy for Node.js app

Question

I have an Express application, server listening on 3000 port. It is hosted on VPS, Ubuntu. When I open {VPS server ip}:3000 in browser, all is ok. But now I want to get access to the app at example.com, that's my domain name. I've installed Nginx, enabled UFW. I edited file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf, now its contents is

user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;

events {
    worker_connections 768;
    # multi_accept on;
}

http {

    ##
    # Basic Settings
    ##

    sendfile on;
    tcp_nopush on;
    tcp_nodelay on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;
    # server_tokens off;

    # server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
    # server_name_in_redirect off;

    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    ##
    # SSL Settings
    ##

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    ##
    # Logging Settings
    ##

    access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

    ##
    # Gzip Settings
    ##

    gzip on;

    # gzip_vary on;
    # gzip_proxied any;
    # gzip_comp_level 6;
    # gzip_buffers 16 8k;
    # gzip_http_version 1.1;
    # gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

    ##
    # Virtual Host Configs
    ##

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name example.com[-->my real domain here<--];
    
        location / {
            proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header   Host $http_host;
            proxy_pass         http://[-->my real server ip here<--]:3000;
        }
    }
}


#mail {
#   # See sample authentication script at:
#   # http://wiki.nginx.org/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript
# 
#   # auth_http localhost/auth.php;
#   # pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";
#   # imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";
# 
#   server {
#       listen     localhost:110;
#       protocol   pop3;
#       proxy      on;
#   }
# 
#   server {
#       listen     localhost:143;
#       protocol   imap;
#       proxy      on;
#   }
#}

nginx -t says that syntax is ok. Then systemctl restart nginx, it's active. When I open example.com in a browser, my app is inavailable. What should I check? What should I edit or restart or activate? Thx!

Answer 1

You need to create a file in sites-enabled folder of your nginx folder ( /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ ).

And add proxy configuration of listening the request on post 80 ( or 443 if you have SSL certificates ) and proxypass it to http://127.0.0.1:3000/

And then try running nginx -t restart the nginx server.

Hope it helps you!!

Answer 2

So, probably my experience can be useful. The http section of my nginx.conf is

http {

    ##
    # Basic Settings
    ##

    sendfile on;
    tcp_nopush on;
    tcp_nodelay on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;
    # server_tokens off;

    # server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
    # server_name_in_redirect off;

    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    ##
    # SSL Settings
    ##

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    ##
    # Logging Settings
    ##

    access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

    ##
    # Gzip Settings
    ##

    gzip on;

    # gzip_vary on;
    # gzip_proxied any;
    # gzip_comp_level 6;
    # gzip_buffers 16 8k;
    # gzip_http_version 1.1;
    # gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

    ##
    # Virtual Host Configs
    ##

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
    
}

Obviously, the lines

include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;

make all work. The single file in /sites-available folder has name 'myserver.config' and its full content is

#The Nginx server instance
server{
        listen 80;
        server_name example.com;
        location / {
        proxy_pass http://myIP:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;       
    }
}

I deleted all symbolic links from /sites-enabled which I created during the process of clarifying and created a new one with the command sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/myserver.config /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

That works. Here's not anything new but it confirms that the existing instructions are really workable.