How to Configure Reverse Proxy and HTTPS Encrypted Communication in Nginx

Introduction

In this tutorial, we will learn how to configure Nginx to encrypt communication for web services and use reverse proxy to communicate with clients via the HTTPS protocol.

Why Encrypt Web Service Communication?

With the continuous development of internet technology, web services have become one of the primary means for data transmission between clients and servers. To protect user privacy, prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and man-in-the-middle attacks, HTTPS has become the standard encryption protocol for web services.

What is a Reverse Proxy?

A reverse proxy is a technique that publishes services from multiple servers as a unified entity. The client makes a request to the reverse proxy server, which then forwards the request to the backend server and returns the response to the client. Reverse proxies help improve backend service efficiency and support load balancing, routing, and encryption.

Configuring Reverse Proxy in Nginx

Installing Nginx

Nginx is an efficient web server commonly used for reverse proxy, load balancing, and HTTPS support. If you're using Ubuntu, you can install it using the following commands:

      
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx
      

Configuring Nginx to Support HTTPS

To enable HTTPS, we need to install an SSL certificate. In this tutorial, we will use the Certbot tool to generate and install a self-signed certificate.

Installing Certbot for Certificate Generation

First, install the Certbot tool on Ubuntu using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install certbot
      

Generating the Certificate

Next, use Certbot to generate a self-signed certificate. Run the following command in your terminal:

sudo certbot certonly --rsa-key-size 2048 --standalone --agree-tos --no-eff-email --email admin@example.com
      

Note: This command generates a private key and self-signed certificate using the RSA encryption algorithm. Certbot will also provide instructions on how to configure the reverse proxy and Nginx settings.

Installing the Certificate

The generated certificate is located in the /etc/letsencrypt/live directory. To install it in Nginx, edit the Nginx configuration file with the following command:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
      

Add the following content to the configuration file:

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server;
    server_name example.com;
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;
}
      

Starting the HTTPS Service

After completing the configuration, start the Nginx service to enable HTTPS communication:

sudo systemctl start nginx
      

Now, you have successfully configured the HTTPS encrypted communication protocol. You can access your web service via https://example.com in a browser, with communication securely encrypted by the Nginx server.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to configure reverse proxy in Nginx and enable HTTPS encrypted communication between web services and clients. By using the Certbot tool to generate and install SSL certificates, we ensure secure communication between the client and web service.

• Related Tags:

  API