How to use nginx to serve a web app on a Docker container

Question

I'm running a webserver running Ubuntu 18.04 that is currently serving a website and a couple of blogs. I'd also like to set up a Ruby on Rails web application on a couple of Docker containers (so I can possibly deploy to another non-Linux server).

My server is currently using nginx to serve the websites that it's hosting. How do I use the same nginx installation to serve a Rails application in a Docker container? Do I simply expose port 3000 on the container and set nginx to listen to that, using the normal nginx setup for a Rails app? Or is there something else I need to do? I don't want to move nginx to a container - I simply want to use my current nginx to serve an app running in a container.

you can this github.com/jwilder/nginx-proxy. It will hanlde rest of the container for you without managing config — Adiii
Without moving nginx to docker you’ll have to publish the ports for your containers and proxy_pass localhost:port in your nginx conf - would suggest that you ensure blocking the individual ports on your firewall so that you can only access them through the proxy. Moving nginx to docker and implementing user defined docker networks would prevent from accidentally exposing a service like that. — masseyb

xu feng xu feng · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-17T05:22:09

You can create config file in /etc/nginx/conf.d/ with content:

server {
    listen       *:80;
    server_name  <Your domain name>;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000/;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    }
}

and then config the domain name point your IP Address in DNS provider. Maybe it can help you

How to use nginx to serve a web app on a Docker container

1 Answers