Setup reverse proxy NodeJS¶

This example will walk you through creating a NodeJS hello world application, which is started automatically on docker-compose up via pm2 , will be proxied to the web server and can be reached via valid HTTPS.

Note

It is also possible to attach a leight-weight NodeJS container to the Devilbox instead of running this in the PHP container. See here for details: Reverse Proxy for custom Docker

Table of Contents

Overview ¶

The following configuration will be used:

Project name	VirtualHost directory	Database	TLD_SUFFIX	Project URL
my-node	/shared/httpd/my-node		loc	http://my-node.loc https://my-node.loc

Additionally we will set the listening port of the NodeJS appliation to 4000 inside the PHP container.

We also want NodeJS running regardless of which PHP container will bestarted (global autostart).

Note

Inside the Devilbox PHP container, projects are always in /shared/httpd/.
On your host operating system, projects are by default in ./data/www/ inside the Devilbox git directory. This path can be changed via HOST_PATH_HTTPD_DATADIR.

Walk through ¶

It will be ready in nine simple steps:

Enter the PHP container
Create a new VirtualHost directory
Create NodeJS hello world application
Create virtual docroot directory
Add reverse proxy vhost-gen config files
Create autostart script
Setup DNS record
Restart the Devilbox
Visit http://my-node.loc in your browser

1. Enter the PHP container ¶

All work will be done inside the PHP container as it provides you with all required command line tools.

Navigate to the Devilbox git directory and execute shell.sh (or shell.bat on Windows) to enter the running PHP container.

host> ./shell.sh

See also

2. Create new vhost directory ¶

The vhost directory defines the name under which your project will be available.
( <vhost dir>.TLD_SUFFIX will be the final URL ).

devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ mkdir my-node

See also

TLD_SUFFIX

3. Create NodeJS application ¶

# Navigate to your project directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ cd my-node

# Create a directory which will hold the source code
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd/my-node $ mkdir src

# Create the index.js file with your favourite editor
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd/my-node/src $ vi index.js

index.js¶

// Load the http module to create an http server.
var http = require('http');

// Configure our HTTP server to respond with Hello World to all requests.
var server = http.createServer(function (request, response) {
  response.writeHead(200, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"});
  response.end("Hello World\n");
});

// Listen on port 4000
server.listen(4000);

4. Create virtual docroot directory ¶

Every project for the Devilbox requires a htdocs directory present inside the project dir. For a reverse proxy this is not of any use, but rather only for the Intranet vhost page to stop complaining about the missing htdocs directory. So that’s why this is only a virtual directory which will not hold any data.

# Navigate to your project directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ cd my-node

# Create the docroot directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd/my-node $ mkdir htdocs

See also

HTTPD_DOCROOT_DIR

5. Add reverse proxy vhost-gen config files ¶

5.1 Create vhost-gen template directory ¶

Before we can copy the vhost-gen templates, we must create the .devilbox template directory inside the project directory.

# Navigate to your project directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ cd my-node

# Create the .devilbox template directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd/my-node $ mkdir .devilbox

See also

HTTPD_TEMPLATE_DIR

5.2 Copy vhost-gen templates ¶

Now we can copy and adjust the vhost-gen reverse proxy files for Apache 2.2, Apache 2.4 and Nginx.

The reverse vhost-gen templates are available in cfg/vhost-gen:

host> tree -L 1 cfg/vhost-gen/

cfg/vhost-gen/
├── apache22.yml-example-rproxy
├── apache22.yml-example-vhost
├── apache24.yml-example-rproxy
├── apache24.yml-example-vhost
├── nginx.yml-example-rproxy
├── nginx.yml-example-vhost
└── README.md

0 directories, 7 files

For this example we will copy all *-example-rproxy files into /shared/httpd/my-node/.devilbox to ensure this will work with all web servers.

host> cd /path/to/devilbox
host> cp cfg/vhost-gen/apache22.yml-example-rproxy data/www/my-node/.devilbox/apache22.yml
host> cp cfg/vhost-gen/apache24.yml-example-rproxy data/www/my-node/.devilbox/apache24.yml
host> cp cfg/vhost-gen/nginx.yml-example-rproxy data/www/my-node/.devilbox/nginx.yml

5.3 Adjust ports ¶

By default, all vhost-gen templates will forward requests to port 8000 into the PHP container. Our current example however uses port 4000, so we must change that accordingly for all three templates.

5.3.1 Adjust Apache 2.2 template ¶

Open the apache22.yml vhost-gen template in your project:

host> cd /path/to/devilbox
host> vi data/www/my-node/.devilbox/apache22.yml

Find the two lines with ProxyPass and ProxyPassReverse and change the port from 8000 to 4000

data/www/my-node/.devilbox/apache22.yml¶

# ... more lines above ... #

###
### Basic vHost skeleton
###
vhost: |
  <VirtualHost __DEFAULT_VHOST__:__PORT__>
      ServerName   __VHOST_NAME__

      CustomLog  "__ACCESS_LOG__" combined
      ErrorLog   "__ERROR_LOG__"

      # Reverse Proxy definition (Ensure to adjust the port, currently '8000')
      ProxyRequests On
      ProxyPreserveHost On
      ProxyPass / http://php:4000/
      ProxyPassReverse / http://php:4000/

# ... more lines below ... #

5.3.2 Adjust Apache 2.4 template ¶

Open the apache24.yml vhost-gen template in your project:

host> cd /path/to/devilbox
host> vi data/www/my-node/.devilbox/apache24.yml

Find the two lines with ProxyPass and ProxyPassReverse and change the port from 8000 to 4000

data/www/my-node/.devilbox/apache24.yml¶

# ... more lines above ... #

###
### Basic vHost skeleton
###
vhost: |
  <VirtualHost __DEFAULT_VHOST__:__PORT__>
      ServerName   __VHOST_NAME__

      CustomLog  "__ACCESS_LOG__" combined
      ErrorLog   "__ERROR_LOG__"

      # Reverse Proxy definition (Ensure to adjust the port, currently '8000')
      ProxyRequests On
      ProxyPreserveHost On
      ProxyPass / http://php:4000/
      ProxyPassReverse / http://php:4000/

# ... more lines below ... #

5.3.3 Adjust Nginx template ¶

Open the nginx.yml vhost-gen template in your project:

host> cd /path/to/devilbox
host> vi data/www/my-node/.devilbox/nginx.yml

Find the lines with proxy_pass and change the port from 8000 to 4000

data/www/my-node/.devilbox/nginx.yml¶

# ... more lines above ... #

###
### Basic vHost skeleton
###
vhost: |
  server {
      listen       __PORT____DEFAULT_VHOST__;
      server_name  __VHOST_NAME__;

      access_log   "__ACCESS_LOG__" combined;
      error_log    "__ERROR_LOG__" warn;

      # Reverse Proxy definition (Ensure to adjust the port, currently '8000')
      location / {
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_pass http://php:4000;
      }

# ... more lines below ... #

6. Create autostart script ¶

For NodeJS applications, the Devilbox already bundles an autostart template which you can use and simply just add the path of your NodeJS application. This template does nothing by default as its file name does not end by .sh. So let’s have a look at the template from autostart/run-node-js-projects.sh-example. The location where you will have to add your path is highlighted:

autostart/run-node-js-projects.sh-example¶

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# This is a generic example to startup your NodeJS projects with
# pm2 (https://github.com/Unitech/pm2)
#
# Important: As everything is run by the root user, you must explicitly direct the
#            commands to the devilbox user.
#



# Add the full paths of your Nodejs projects startup files into this array
# Each project separated by a newline and enclosed in double quotes. (No commas!)
# Paths are internal paths inside the PHP container.
NODE_PROJECTS=(
	#"/shared/httpd/my-rhost/js/index.js"
	#"/shared/httpd/my-node-hello-world/name/run.js"
	#"/shared/httpd/another-node-project/javascript/run.js"
)


# Check if any projects have been defined
if [ ${#NODE_PROJECTS[@]} -eq 0 ]; then
	echo "No projects defined. Exiting."
	exit 0
fi


# This loops over the paths, separates base directory and filename and will run it in the background
# as the user devilbox. There shouldn't be any need to change anything here.
for item in ${NODE_PROJECTS[*]}; do
	NODE_PATH="$( dirname "${item}" )"
	NODE_FILE="$( basename "${item}" )"

	if [ ! -d "${NODE_PATH}" ]; then
		>&2 echo "[Warning], skipping startup, directory does not exist: ${NODE_PATH}"
		continue;
	fi
	if [ ! -f "${NODE_PATH}/${NODE_FILE}" ]; then
		>&2 echo "[Warning], skipping startup, file does not exist: ${NODE_PATH}/${NODE_FILE}"
		continue;
	fi

	echo "su -c \"cd ${NODE_PATH}; pm2 start ${NODE_FILE}\" -l devilbox"
	su -c "cd ${NODE_PATH}; pm2 start ${NODE_FILE}" -l devilbox
done

So in order to proceed copy this file inside the autostart/ directory of the Devilbox git directory to a new file ending by .sh

host> cd /path/to/devilbox

# Navigate to the autostart directory
host> cd autostart

# Copy the template
host> cp run-node-js-projects.sh-example run-node-js-projects.sh

# Adjust the template and add your path:
host> vi run-node-js-projects.sh

autostart/run-node-js-projects.sh¶

# ... more lines above ... #

# Add the full paths of your Nodejs projects startup files into this array
# Each project separated by a newline and enclosed in double quotes. (No commas!)
# Paths are internal paths inside the PHP container.
NODE_PROJECTS=(
    "/shared/httpd/my-node/js/index.js"
)

# ... more lines below ... #

See also

Custom scripts per PHP version (individually for different PHP versions)
Custom scripts globally (equal for all PHP versions)
Autostarting NodeJS Apps

7. DNS record ¶

If you have Auto DNS configured already, you can skip this section, because DNS entries will be available automatically by the bundled DNS server.

If you don’t have Auto DNS configured, you will need to add the following line to your host operating systems /etc/hosts file (or C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc on Windows):

/etc/hosts¶

127.0.0.1 my-node.loc

See also

8. Restart the Devilbox ¶

Now for those changes to take affect, you will have to restart the Devilbox.

host> cd /path/to/devilbox

# Stop the Devilbox
host> docker-compose down
host> docker-compose rm -f

# Start the Devilbox
host> docker-compose up -d php httpd bind

9. Open your browser ¶

All set now, you can visit http://my-node.loc or https://my-node.loc in your browser. The NodeJS application has been started up automatically and the reverse proxy will direct all requests to it.

Managing NodeJS ¶

If you have never worked with pm2 , I suggest to visit their website and get familiar with the available commands. A quick guide is below:

# Navigate to Devilbox git directory
host> cd /path/to/devilbox

# Enter the PHP container
host> ./shell.sh

# List your running NodeJS apps
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ pm2 list

┌──────────┬────┬─────────┬──────┬──────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ App name │ id │ version │ mode │ pid  │ status │ restart │ uptime │ cpu │ mem       │ user     │ watching │
├──────────┼────┼─────────┼──────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ index    │ 0  │ N/A     │ fork │ 1906 │ online │ 0       │ 42h    │ 0%  │ 39.7 MB   │ devilbox │ disabled │
└──────────┴────┴─────────┴──────┴──────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

Setup reverse proxy NodeJS¶

Overview ¶

Walk through ¶

1. Enter the PHP container ¶

2. Create new vhost directory ¶

3. Create NodeJS application ¶

4. Create virtual docroot directory ¶

5. Add reverse proxy vhost-gen config files ¶

5.1 Create vhost-gen template directory ¶

5.2 Copy vhost-gen templates ¶

5.3 Adjust ports ¶

5.3.1 Adjust Apache 2.2 template ¶

5.3.2 Adjust Apache 2.4 template ¶

5.3.3 Adjust Nginx template ¶

6. Create autostart script ¶

7. DNS record ¶

8. Restart the Devilbox ¶

9. Open your browser ¶

Managing NodeJS ¶

Next steps ¶

Use bundled batteries ¶

Enhance the Devilbox ¶

Add services ¶

Container tools ¶