nginix on windowse don't redirect? - nginx

Question

I'm working on Kubernetes deployment services using minikube locally on my windows 10 machine, so when I expose my service which is an expressjs API I can reach it via: localhost:3000
I want to expose that service on the network so I can test the API from another device (My mobile phone) to do that I installed Nginx to set a reverse proxy to forward all incoming requests on port 80 to localhost:3000/api but when I hit localhost it shows the default page of Nginx ?
this is my nginx.conf
#user nobody;
worker_processes 1;
#error_log logs/error.log;
#error_log logs/error.log notice;
#error_log logs/error.log info;
#pid logs/nginx.pid;
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
include mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
#log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
# '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
# '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
#access_log logs/access.log main;
sendfile on;
#tcp_nopush on;
#keepalive_timeout 0;
keepalive_timeout 65;
#gzip on;
server {
listen 80;
server_name localhost;
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:3000/api/;
}
#
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
location = /50x.html {
root html;
}
# proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80
#
#location ~ \.php$ {
# proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1;
#}
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
#
#location ~ \.php$ {
# root html;
# fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
# fastcgi_index index.php;
# fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /scripts$fastcgi_script_name;
# include fastcgi_params;
#}
# deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
# concurs with nginx's one
#
#location ~ /\.ht {
# deny all;
#}
}
# another virtual host using mix of IP-, name-, and port-based configuration
#
#server {
# listen 8000;
# listen somename:8080;
# server_name somename alias another.alias;
# location / {
# root html;
# index index.html index.htm;
# }
#}
# HTTPS server
#
#server {
# listen 443 ssl;
# server_name localhost;
# ssl_certificate cert.pem;
# ssl_certificate_key cert.key;
# ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:1m;
# ssl_session_timeout 5m;
# ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
# ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
# location / {
# root html;
# index index.html index.htm;
# }
#}
}
`

Answer 1

A few things could be happening here:
After the Nginx configuration changed, the stop and reload of the application was not performed; this is necessary to load the new configuration and is performed with the commands nginx -s stop, and then nginx -s reload.
Accidentally running multiple instances: if for any reason the command start nginx was run more than once, you will have a process running for each time and cannot kill them with the nginx -s stop command; in this case, you will need to kill the processes on the Task Manager or restart the Windows system.
Be aware that Nginx for Windows is considered a beta version and it has some performance and operability issues, as stated in the following documentation [1].
I recommend switching to a Linux system which fully supports Minikube and Nginx. Your scenario has been replicated on an Ubuntu VM and is working as expected.
[1] http://nginx.org/en/docs/windows.html