When I migrate my wordpress-es to VPS, Apache was the default setup.
Problem: I wanted to run some Node.js apps in the same VPS, but node requires nginx.
Hence, I configured my VPS to run both Apache and Nginx.
That’s possible, when you make nginx a reverse proxy server.
The plan is as such:
- nginx listens to port 80
- nginx 1st server block is configured for node app at port 8021
- nginx 2nd server block is configured to proxy to apache at port 8011
- apache listen to port 8011
- apache’s virtual hosts listen to port 8011
The details and a sample of the .conf files as follows. My scenario is using nginxapp.com and apacheapp.com
Nginx
There are 2 server blocks, which I put in 2 seperate conf files: nginxapp.com.conf and apache-proxy.conf.
```nginx /etc/nginx/sites-available/nginxapp.com.conf
# Node server block
server {
listen 80;
root /var/www/nginxapp.com/;
index index.html index.htm;
server_name nginxapp.com;
# temp for serving static
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
}
# Proxy to node app
# Uncomment and remove the temp above if your node app is setup at port 8021
#location / {
# proxy_pass http://localhost:8021;
# proxy_http_version 1.1;
# proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
# proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
# proxy_set_header Host $host;
# proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
#}
} ```
Note: You should setup your node app and listen on 8021. In the meanwhile (testing), you can put a dummy index.html in /var/www/nginxapp.com/.
```nginx /etc/nginx/sites-available/apache-proxy.conf
# Apache server block
# Proxy to 8011 which Apache is listening to
server {
listen 80 default_server;
location / {
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_pass http://localhost:8011;
}
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
} ```
Enable the nginx conf with these commands:
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/nginxapp.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginxapp.com.conf
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/apache-proxy.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/apache-proxy.conf
Apache
For apache, you need to change the port file to listen to 8011.
```apache /etc/apache2/ports.conf
Listen 8011
# As per default configuration ```
Below is a sample of a virtual host file. You need to change for all. The change is again on the listening port.
```apache /etc/apache2/sites-available/awesome.com.conf
<VirtualHost *:8011>
# as per your configuration
</VirtualHost>
## Restart
With that, restart each service with apache first, then nginx.
```bash
sudo service apache restart
sudo service nginx restart
Now, you if you go to http://apacheapp.com, it should work, and it is because nginx is proxying nicely to apache.
You can also go to http://apacheapp.com:8011, which is directly to apache.
And of course, you can now write your node app at http://nodeapp.com.
Other guides
I referenced from some of Digital Ocean guides: