Cannot connect proxy_server localhost:3000 to nginx config file (docker-compose project)

Question

I have the following docker-compose.yml files located in two different folders:

~/front/docker-compose.yml and ~/api/docker-compose.yml

I need to connect proxy_server localhost:3000 (from frontend) to nginx config file (from api). What could I be missing?

Here is the ngix config file:

server {
listen 80;
index index.html;
server_name localhost;
error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log;
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
root /var/www/html/public;

}


server {
listen          80;             # the port nginx is listening on
server_name     client.localhost;    # setup your domain here


 location / {


    proxy_redirect                      off;
    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_read_timeout          1m;
    proxy_connect_timeout       1m;
    proxy_pass                          http://127.0.0.1:3000/; # set the address of the Node.js instance here
}
}

When I do docker-compose logs -f nginx, this is the error:

2020/08/07 10:50:10 [error] 28#28: *9 connect() failed (111: Connection refused) while connecting to upstream, client: 192.168.16.1, server: client.localhost, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://127.0.0.1:3000/favicon.ico", host: "client.localhost", referrer: "http://client.localhost/"

error after running docker-compose logs -f nginx

Here is the front/docker-compose.yml:

version: "3.5"
services:
  client:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    container_name: client
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    networks:
      - client_esl
networks:
  client_esl:
   external:
      name : nginx_esl

api/docker-compose.yml

version: "3.5"

networks:
  esl:

services:
  site:
    image: nginx:stable-alpine
    container_name: nginx
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
      - ./nginx/default.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
    networks:
      - esl

Dockfile on front folder

FROM node:12.4-alpine

RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/nuxt-app

RUN WORKDIR /usr/src/nuxt-app

RUN apk update && apk upgrade

RUN apk add git

COPY . /usr/src/nuxt-app/

RUN npm install

RUN npm run build

EXPOSE 3000

ENV NUXT_HOST=0.0.0.0

ENV NUXT_PORT=3000

CMD [ "npm", "start" ]

You need to assemble them together in the same docker network. — Michael Hirschler

Cyril G. Cyril G. · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-07T11:35:15

If you want to connect 2 containers together, there are several options:

Expose the port to the host as you did (3000:3000), then you can use this port + host IP (not localhost as it refer to the container itself) from the other containers
Don't expose the port, if the containers are in same network use container name + port like client:3000

Cannot connect proxy_server localhost:3000 to nginx config file (docker-compose project)

2 Answers