#NGINX Proxy Reverse for Docker with Portainer

Requirements

1. Install Docker.
2. Install Docker-compose.
3. Clone this repository

#How to use - Quick Start

The default configuration will connect Portainer against the local Docker host, using an nginx-proxy container (port 80).

# Clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/perrout/docker-proxy.git
# Go into the repository
cd docker-proxy
# Create the docker proxy network
docker network create nginx-proxy
# Run the app
docker-compose up -d

And then access Portainer by hitting http://localhost:9000 with a web browser.

##Step 1. Starting up nginx-proxy

To get started, let’s start up the nginx-proxy container. This can be accomplished either by a single docker command, or using docker-compose. Let’s cover both.

Before we get started, either way, we need to first create a Docker network that we will use to bridge all of these containers together.

$ docker network create nginx-proxy

From now on, we need to ensure that we’re always adding new containers to the nginx-proxy Docker network. Installing nginx-proxy with Docker

$ docker run -d -p 80:80 --name nginx-proxy --net nginx-proxy -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock jwilder/nginx-proxy

###Installing nginx-proxy with docker-compose

First, create a new docker-compose.yml file in the directory of your choosing (one titled nginx-proxy is a good idea), and copy in the following text:

version: "3"

services:
	nginx-proxy:
		build: proxy
		container_name: docker-proxy
		restart: always
		ports:
			- "80:80"
			- "443:443"
		volumes:
			- /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro

	portainer:
		image: portainer/portainer
		container_name: portainer-app
		restart: always
		ports:
			- "9000:9000"
		command: -H unix:///var/run/docker.sock
		volumes:
			- /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
			- portainer_data:/data

volumes:
	portainer_data:
	
networks:
	default:
		external:
			name: nginx-proxy

And then run the following docker-compose command to get started.

$ docker-compose up -d

###How nginx-proxy works

As you can see from the code in both options, the container listens on port 80 and exposes the same port inside of the container. That allows all incoming traffic to flow though nginx.

You might be wondering what the /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock line accomplishes. Essentially, this gives any container access to the host’s Docker socket, which contains information about a variety of Docker events, such as creating a new container, or shutting one down.

This means that every time you add a container, nginx-proxy sees the event through the socket, automatically creates the configuration file needed to route traffic, and restarts nginx to make the changes available immediately. nginx-proxy looks for containers with the VIRTUAL_HOSTvariable enabled, so that’s critical to our operations moving forward.

Also important to note is the --net nginx-proxy line in the Docker command, and the networks: default: external: name: nginx-proxy block in the docker-compose.yml file. These establish that all containers will communicate over that Docker network.

##Step 2. Adding a container to the proxy

Now that we have nginx-proxy running, we can start adding new containers, which will be automatically picked up and configured for. Because we covered it in the last Docker tutorial, and since it’s an easy implementation to try out, let’s use Wordpress as an example.

###Using docker-compose

Start by creating a ‘docker-compose.yml’ file in an empty directory and copying in the following.

version: "3"

services:
   db:
     image: mysql:5.7
     volumes:
       - db_data:/var/lib/mysql
     restart: always
     environment:
       MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: somewordpress
       MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
       MYSQL_USER: wordpress
       MYSQL_PASSWORD: wordpress
     container_name: wp_test_db

   wordpress:
     depends_on:
       - db
     image: wordpress:latest
     expose:
       - 80
     restart: always
     environment:
       VIRTUAL_HOST: blog.domain.com
       WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db:3306
       WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
       WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: wordpress
     container_name: wp_test
volumes:
    db_data:

networks:
  default:
    external:
      name: nginx-proxy

Again, take note of the expose and environment: VIRTUAL_HOST options within the file. Also, the networks option at the bottom is necessary to allow this container to “speak” with nginx-proxy

In both cases, as long as your DNS is set up to route traffic properly, things should work correctly.

From here, you can start up any number of additional Wordpress site—or any type of service, for that matter—and have them be automatically added to the nginx-proxy network.

##Additional resources

Of course, be sure to check out the extensive documentation for nginx-proxy to learn more about how you can configure some more complex proxies, such as those using SSL, with multiple ports, or multiple networks.

We haven’t tested it out yet, but there’s a “companion” to nginx-proxy called letsencrypt-nginx-proxy-companion that allows for the creation/renewal of Let’s Encrypt certificates automatically directly alongside the proxy itself.