Install and Configure NGINX Reverse Proxy on Ubuntu

Nginx is a free and open-source web server and It works quite well as a reverse proxy server by directing web traffic to specific servers. This blog will show you how to configure Nginx on a Ubuntu VM and we will use this to configure an Nginx Reverse proxy required for our vCD

Step 1: Download and Install Ubuntu OS

Once installed, launch an SSH session

Step 2: Update Ubuntu Software Repositories

To ensure we always get the latest patch and security updates possible. We do that by running a command

sudo apt-get update

Step 3: Install Nginx

sudo apt-get install nginx -y

Step 4: Enable Nginx Services

# To Manage Nginx deamon
# systemctl start|stop|status nginx

# To Stop and Disable Service
systemctl enable |disable nginx

# To Ensure service stays peristant during reboots
chkconfig nginx on

# To Show status of httpd
systemctl list-unit-files | grep nginx

Optionally, services can be restarted as 
/etc/init.d/nginx | stop | start

Step 6: Generate Cert files

sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/nginx/ssl/ vcloud..key -out /etc/nginx/ssl/ vcloud.crt 

Step 5: Create New Configuration File

To create a new configuration file, enter:

vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/vcloud.conf

server {
listen 443;
# SSL Config
ssl_certifcate /etc/nginx/ssl/vcloud.crt
ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/vcloud.key
location / {
proxy_pass http://my_server; # vCD cell webconsole
}
}

server {
listen 8443;
location / {
proxy_pass http://my_server:8443; # vCD cell console proxy

}
}

This is a very basic Nginx reverse proxy example. Nginx is set to listen for all traffic on port 80 for all traffic.

The proxy_pass command directs all traffic on port 80 to http://my_server. Just change http://my_server to the location of your choice, and Nginx will intercept client requests and route them to the location you specify

To activate the new Nginx file, enter:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/custom_server.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/custom_server.conf

Step 7: Test and Restart Nginx

To test Nginx:

nginx -t

To restart Nginx:

systemctl nginx restart