How to Create Nginx Reverse Proxy Configuration

Enhance your server’s performance and security with our comprehensive guide to setting up Nginx reverse proxy. Whether you’re looking to hide your backend infrastructure, improve website loading times through caching, or securely manage incoming traffic, Nginx offers robust solutions that empower your web infrastructure.

Discover the versatility of Nginx, a high-performance web server renowned for its efficiency and scalability. In this tutorial, we’ll delve into configuring Nginx as a reverse proxy, allowing you to optimize server resources, ensure reliable content delivery, and safeguard against potential security threats.

What is Nginx?

Nginx is an open-source web server renowned for its speed and scalability. Originally developed to address the performance limitations of traditional web servers, Nginx has evolved into a versatile tool used for various web serving purposes, including reverse proxying, load balancing, caching, and more.

As a reverse proxy, Nginx acts as an intermediary between clients and servers, forwarding client requests to backend servers and returning the servers’ responses to clients. This setup not only enhances server security by masking backend server details but also optimizes web application performance by efficiently distributing incoming requests.

Install Nginx

If Nginx is not yet installed on your system, you can easily install it using your package manager. For instance, on Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

Configure Nginx

Navigate to the Nginx configuration directory. Usually, the main configuration file can be found at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf, and you can include additional configurations from the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory.

Create a Configuration File

Create a fresh configuration file for your reverse proxy. You have the option to either modify the default configuration file or generate a new one. For simplicity, let’s initiate a new file:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/reverse-proxy

Configure Reverse Proxy

Inside the configuration file, you’ll need to define a server block for your reverse proxy. This server block will handle incoming client requests and forward them to the appropriate backend servers. Here is a basic example to get you started:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://destination_ip_or_domain;
        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;
    }
}

Substitute example.com with your domain name and destination_ip_or_domain with the IP address or domain name of the server to which you want to forward requests.

Enable the Configuration

Create a symbolic link to activate the configuration:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/reverse-proxy /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Test Configuration

Before restarting Nginx, let’s test our new configuration:

sudo nginx -t

This command thoroughly inspects your configuration files, identifying and reporting any syntax errors to ensure your setup is correct and functional.

Reload Nginx

If the test is successful, reload Nginx to implement the changes.

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Firewall Configuration

Make sure your firewall permits traffic on the designated ports (such as port 80 for HTTP) if it is enabled by your operationg system.

IMPORTANT: We don’t allow any kind of malicious activity or illegal activity on our servers. Please check our Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP). We are not responsible for any losses with your current configuration in your server or Nginx. Also, check our other article about Common Apache Error Codes, which can be useful, if you use NGINX + APACHE.