Nginx + Docker + Let'sEncrypt on Ubuntu

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How to setup a webservice using nginx + docker + LetsEncrypt on Ubuntu VMs
Pre-requisites
A VM with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS running on it
Ability to SSH into the VM
VM should be connected to internet to get the IP address
Access to DNS server for your domain, in order to add an entry there to create a domain name mapping to your server
Now let's prepare our VM for the task at hand. Install various packages:
# Update dependencies
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y upgrade
sudo apt install -y docker.io
sudo apt install -y nginx
Update Firewall
# check firewall options
sudo ufw app list
​
# enable all HTTP and HTTPs traffic from firewall
sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
​
# confirm updated status
sudo ufw status
​
# NOTE: On GCP, the status will show inactive since firewall is external
Start docker container
sudo docker run -p 3000:8080 -e NODE_ENV='production' --name website-prod \
    --restart=always -d gcr.io/ivikramtiwari/website:prod
Configure Nginx for HTTP access
Before we can enable HTTPs access, we need to have HTTP access enabled for our app.
Make sure application has HTTP traffic enables from Compute Engine page
# it's a good idea to create a new file for each subdomain
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/vikramtiwari.com
nginx.conf
server {
      listen 80;
      listen [::]:80;
      listen 443 ssl;
      listen [::]:443 ssl;
      server_name     vikramtiwari.com      www.vikramtiwari.com;
​
      include snippets/ssl-vikram.tiwari.dev.conf;
      include snippets/ssl-params.conf;
​
      server_tokens                   off;
      root /var/www/html;
​
      location / {
              proxy_read_timeout      300;
              proxy_connect_timeout   300;
              proxy_redirect          off;
              proxy_http_version      1.1;
              proxy_set_header        Host                    $http_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_pass              http://0.0.0.0:3000;
      }
​
      location ~ /.well-known {
        allow all;
      }
}
# create a symlink in sites-enabled
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/vikramtiwari.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
# check if nginx config is correct
sudo nginx -t
​
# restart nginx
sudo systemctl restart nginx
​
# check nginx status
sudo systemctl status nginx
​
# find your IP address
dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com.
Now use your IP address to create a "A" type DNS record on your provider. As soon as the DNS settings are live, you should be able to access your app on your website.
Setup LetsEncrypt
# install certbot and nginx plugin
sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
​
# get certificates
sudo certbot --nginx -d vikramtiwari.com -d www.vikramtiwari.com
​
# Follow through the options in the terminal until it shows "Congratulations!" message
At this point everything is setup and you are ready to receive HTTPs traffic.
Verification of HTTPs
Using website https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=vikramtiwari.com&latest​
Using CLI
sudo certbot renew --dry-run
From nginx file. Your Nginx file should have following entries now
    listen [::]:443 ssl ipv6only=on; # managed by Certbot
    listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/vikramtiwari.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/vikramtiwari.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
    include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot
Last modified 1yr ago
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Pre-requisites
Start docker container
Configure Nginx for HTTP access
Setup LetsEncrypt