Set up nginx as a reverse proxy to node.js.

nginx + node setup.md

The idea is to have nginx installed and node installed. I will extend this gist to include how to install those as well, but at the moment, the following assumes you have nginx 0.7.62 and node 0.2.3 installed on a Linux distro (I used Ubuntu).

In a nutshell,

1. nginx is used to serve static files (css, js, images, etc.)
2. node serves all the "dynamic" stuff.

So for example, www.foo.com request comes and your css, js, and images get served thru nginx while everything else (the request for say index.html or "/") gets served through node.

3. nginx listens on port 80.
4. node listens on port 8124 (for this example only. you can change this port for your node app).

So in your /etc/nginx/sites-available/default modify your location / stanza and add the second stanza of this code block:

location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8124; #this is the ip:port where your node app runs root /var/www/yoursitename; expires 30d; #uncomment this is you want to name an index file: #index index.php index.html; access_log off; }

    location ~* ^.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|pdf|txt|tar|wav|bmp|rtf|js|flv|swf|html|htm)$ {
        root   /var/www/yoursitename/public;
    }

Note: I did not change the /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file. It is still the default nginx.conf from the nginx installation.

Now, restart nginx.

/etc/init.d/nginx restart

(Re)start your node app.

node /path/to/your/node/app.js

Navigate to your site and verify.

Enjoy blazing fast static files and blazing fast dynamic content.

"I will extend this gist to include how to install those as well." Did you ever get a chance to write those? This gist is handy. :)

helpful, thanks.

When nodejs provides sendfile(), how would nginx be beneficial over nodejs to serve static files ?

@sisingh - Nginx is a lot faster than node at serving static files & performing optimizations such as gzip and caching. That is why even though node can serve static files as you correctly pointed out, this is not the best solution. Depending on your web server backend, it is best to let nginx, Apache, or IIS handle the serving of static files.

Hi, whats happen if i have subroutes inside my node app? im not able to make it works, my app is running on 8002 port and i have the following conf:

  #proxy to a node app running on 8002 port
  location ^~ /auth/ {
      proxy_pass http://localhost:8002/;

redirect works, but when im trying to go to a any node app'subroute, nginx dont know what to do and returns a 404.

any idea?
thanks

In my case I have API Rest on Node in localhost:3000 and I call this with:

location /api {
    proxy_pass              http://localhost:3000;
    proxy_buffering         on;
}

Now, my app on mydomain.com serves the frontend and if I call mydomain.com/api serves my API Rest.

I hope this help you 👍

@cybermarkus1 I am having exactly the same problem like you, do you remember how you solved that problem? thanks!

Same problem here @cybermarkus1

Amazing! Was up all night trying to figure this out. Thanks.

Hello!
I have several applications in node.js, and I want to run with nginx to redirect me. I can not achieve it is to manage the routing of express good.

I have the following in node:

/ * GET home page. * /
router.get ( '/', function (req, res, next) {
  res.render ( 'index.html');
});

/ * GET dashboard * /
router.get ( '/ timelife', function (req, res, next) {
    res.render ( 'admin / timeLife.html');
});

and my nginx configuration is as follows:
location / editor / {
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $ remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $ proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        Host proxy_set_header $ HTTP_HOST;
        proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
        PROXY_PASS http: //190.28.3615: 3001 /;

        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        Upgrade proxy_set_header $ http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";

        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $ scheme;
        proxy_cache_key sfs $ request_uri $ scheme;
    }

when I try to access http://mydomain.com/editor/, I redirected the product http://mydomain.com/login/ and shows me 404 error.

Any idea how to fix this?

Ive set it up on a raspberry pi2. The site is at:

www/subdomain.domain.com/aism/index.html && the nodejs app is here too

from another computer on the network I can see the index.html but the app doesnt work. The app works fine remotely thru the router when on http: