Setup NGINX reverse proxy with SSL? - node.js

Question

I'm trying to setup a Node.js Express server with https and to do that I am using a NGINX reverse proxy. My VPS is running Ubuntu 18.04. I updated the default server configuration in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default to this so it works with SSL (if it works):
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;
listen 433 ssl default_server;
listen [::]:433 ssl default_server;
ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/privkey.pem;
root /var/www/html;
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name mediaserver;
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
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;
}
}
I ran sudo systemctl restart nginx to restart NGINX.
But the issue is that when I go to the IP Address of my server without https, it opens up fine, but when I go to the IP Address of my server with https, it says the site can't be reached. Any suggested fixes? Thanks.

Answer 1

You need to route the traffic to https instead of http. I also added the proxy_redirect directive which will route any insecure requests to https.
EDIT: Also one problem that I see, is that you are listening on the wrong port. It should be 443, not 433. Notice that I changed proxy_redirect to use port 80.
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;
listen 443 ssl default_server;
listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/privkey.pem;
root /var/www/html;
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name mediaserver;
location / {
proxy_pass https://localhost:3000;
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;
proxy_redirect http://localhost:80 https://localhost:3000;
}
}
Here is a link to the associated NGINX documentation.