Run Nginx as reverse proxy on Openshift

Openshift
  1. 1. Step 1 – Create Nginx base image
  2. 2. Step 2 – Add reverse proxy configuration
  3. 3. Step 3 – Create Reverse Proxy

Openshift

  1. How to deploy website to openshift with nginx?
  2. How to Run Minishift On MacOSX
  3. Run Nginx as reverse proxy on Openshift

In this post, I will introduce a way to deploy a Nginx Reverse Proxy to Openshift base on RedHat certified Nginx Builder Image.

In my previous post: How to deploy website to openshift with nginx, I simply introduced how to use the Nginx Builder Image to deploy a website on Openshift.

Reverse Proxy configuration, however, is not part of web content. Thus it is not able to directly to use the Builder Image to setup the config and we will need create a real Nginx Image which can be futher configured with reverse proxy table.

image

Step 1 – Create Nginx base image

We are creating the Nginx Base Image based on RedHat certified Nginx Builder Image (rhscl/nginx-112-rhel7).

First, let’s create an app that has an empty index.html page from local directory (e.g. $HOME/webfolder):

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oc new-app registry.access.redhat.com/rhscl/nginx-112-rhel7~$HOME/webfolder --name=nginxbase

This will create corresponding resources like buildconfig, deploymentconfig, imagestream, service etc for nginxbase in Openshift.

Once resources created successfully, let’s build the image

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oc start-build nginxbase --from-dir=$HOME/webfolder

This will create the Nginx Base image and push to registry in Openshift.

Once the nginxbase image being created, we could remove all other resources:

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oc delete bc/nginxbase
oc delete dc/nginxbase
oc delete svc/nginxbase

Step 2 – Add reverse proxy configuration

We will need create a custom image for reverse proxy. First, create an empty folder and add following files:

  • Dockerfile
  • nginx-proxy.conf: the proxy definition file

In Dockerfile, add following content:

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FROM nginxbase:latest
ADD nginx-proxy.conf /opt/app-root/etc/nginx.default.d/nginx-proxy.conf

When nginx server starts, it will automatically load configuration files *.conf in /opt/app-root/etc/nginx.default.d folder into its default server definition closure. So we add our nginx-proxy configuration file into that folder.

In nginx-proxy.conf file, we could add reverse proxy configuration. For example:

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location /userProfile {
  proxy_set_header  Host $host;
  proxy_set_header  X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
  proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-Proto https;
  proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
  proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-Host $remote_addr;
  proxy_pass http://userProfile:8080;
}

location /uploadAsset {
  proxy_set_header  Host $host;
  proxy_set_header  X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
  proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-Proto https;
  proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
  proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-Host $remote_addr;
  proxy_buffering off;
  client_max_body_size 50m;
  proxy_pass http://uploadAsset:8080;
}

Step 3 – Create Reverse Proxy

Next, create reverse proxy app in Openshift:

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oc new-app --strategy=docker nginxbase~<path to dockerfile> --name=myReverseProxy

Just be aware we have to use docker strategy as app’s build strategy so that Openshift knows that we will upload a Docker project.

Start Build:

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oc start-build myReverseProxy --from-dir=<path to dockerfile>

Once the build finished, Openshift should automatically deploy a new pod up and running. We could expose the reverse proxy by running

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oc expose svc/myReverseProxy

and access the nginx reverse proxy through the routes created.

nginx openshift
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