Nginx Proxy for SSH Strapi Backend not responding - nginx

Question

I am currently developing a web study for my research using Strapi for my backend on a virtual machine. Although all have been running smoothly, now that I am going for full deployment, I ran into a minor issue that I cannot seem to get my head around.
The frontend is already online, running on Nginx (v.1.18.0) For security and best practice, I generated an SSL certificate for my domain and rerouted all HTTP requests to HTTPS which worked fine.
However, Strapi is still running on localhost:1337 without HTTPS, understandably causing for browsers to refuse to connect. In response to that, I followed Strapi's documentation to set up a proxy (Nginx Proxying) but when trying to curl the proxy, I get an unresolved host error.
I am quite new to Ngnix and Strapi. When I test nginx -t, it responses successfully. Yet, the proxy is not working.
Below, my files:
My ./config/env/production/server.js is still quite basic and looks as follows:
module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
host: env('HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
port: env.int('PORT', 1337),
url: 'https://api.my-domain.com',
app: {
keys: env.array('APP_KEYS'),
},
});
/etc/nginx/conf.d/upstream.conf
# Strapi server
upstream strapi {
server 127.0.0.1:1337;
}
My /etc/nginx/sites-available/strapi.conf (within location, i added the return 200 'OK' for testing..)
server {
# Listen HTTP
listen 80;
server_name api.my-domain.com;
# Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
server {
# Listen HTTPS
listen 443 ssl;
server_name api.my-domain.com;
# SSL config
ssl_certificate path/to/certificate/fullchain.pem
ssl_certificate_key path/to/certificate/privkey.pem
# Proxy Config
location / {
proxy_pass http://strapi/;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $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_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
proxy_pass_request_headers on;
return 200 "OK";
}
}
I changed the default domain to a custom file - gonna keep calling it default here thoguh:
server {
listen 443 ssl default_server;
listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
include snippets/self-signed.conf;
include snippets/ssl-params.conf;
root /var/www/my-domain/html;
# Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name my-domain.com www.my-domain.com;
location / {
# First attempt to serve request as file, then
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
}
server {
listen 80 default_server;
server_name _;
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl ;
listen [::]:443 ssl ;
include snippets/self-signed.conf;
include snippets/ssl-params.conf;
root /var/www/my-domain.com/html;
# Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name my-domain.com; # managed by Certbot
location / {
# First attempt to serve request as file, then
# as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
ssl_certificate path/to/certificate/fullchain.pem
ssl_certificate_key path/to/certificate/privkey.pem
}
Thanks in advance!
Strapi Version: 4.4.3
Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS
Database: MySQL
Node Version: v18.10.0
NPM Version: 8.19.2
Yarn Version: 1.22.19

Answer 1

Turns out, following multiple guides can quickly turn any Nginx config into a mess. I went through it all and cleaned my files. The resulting one works like a charm:
server {
listen 443 ssl default_server;
listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
include snippets/ssl-params.conf;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/certificate/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/certificate/privkey.pem;
root /var/www/my-domain/html;
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name my-domain.com www.my-domain.de;
# Proxy Config
location /strapi/ {
rewrite ^/strapi/?(.*)$ /$1 break;
proxy_pass http://strapi/;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $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_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
proxy_pass_request_headers on;
return 200 "OK";
}
}
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;
server_name _;
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}