Nginx as reverse proxy in Express - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Nginx as reverse proxy for Express app

📖 Scenario: You have a simple Express web server running on your computer. You want to use Nginx as a reverse proxy to forward web requests from port 80 to your Express app running on port 3000. This setup helps manage traffic and improve security.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic Express server and configure Nginx to act as a reverse proxy forwarding requests from port 80 to the Express server on port 3000.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a simple Express server listening on port 3000

Define a configuration variable for the Express server port

Write the Nginx reverse proxy configuration block

Complete the Nginx config with server and location blocks to forward requests

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Using Nginx as a reverse proxy is common in web hosting to manage traffic, improve security, and enable load balancing.

💼 Career

Many web developer and DevOps roles require setting up reverse proxies to deploy Node.js or Express applications in production.

1

Create Express server

Create a file called server.js. Write code to import express, create an app, and make it listen on port 3000. Add a route GET / that sends the text 'Hello from Express!'.

Express

// Your code here to create Express app listening on port 3000
// Add GET / route sending 'Hello from Express!'

Need a hint?

Use import express from 'express' and app.listen(3000) to start the server.

2

Add port configuration variable

Add a constant variable called PORT and set it to 3000. Change the app.listen call to use this PORT variable.

Express

import express from 'express';
const app = express();
const PORT = 3000
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello from Express!');
});
app.listen(PORT);
// Your code here to add PORT variable and use it

Need a hint?

Define const PORT = 3000 and use it in app.listen(PORT).

3

Write Nginx reverse proxy config block

Create an Nginx configuration snippet that defines a location / block. Inside it, add the directive proxy_pass http://localhost:3000; to forward requests to the Express server.

Express

# Your code here to write Nginx location block with proxy_pass

Need a hint?

Use location / { proxy_pass http://localhost:3000; } to forward all requests.

4

Complete Nginx server block

Write a full Nginx server block listening on port 80. Inside it, include the location / block with proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;. This completes the reverse proxy setup.

Express

# Your code here to add server block listening on port 80
# Include the location block inside

Need a hint?

Wrap the location block inside server { listen 80; ... }.