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Nginx + Docker + Let'sEncrypt on Ubuntu

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
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 20d ago