Getting nginx and node.js to play nice - node.js

Question

I have an nginx/node.js server I'm trying to configure. Basically it's just the issue of running 2 web servers on port 80 at the same time. I have www.mysite.com that I need to point to nginx on port 80. But I also have a node.js server that I need api.mysite.com to point to port 8888.
I'm messing around with proxy_pass in my config (http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_proxy_module.html#proxy_pass) but with no luck. I also tried this https://stackoverflow.com/a/20716524/605841 with no luck.
If anyone has any tips that would be great. Thanks in advance.
Nginx public dir: /var/www/html. Express app location: /var/www/html/myNodeAppRoot
Here's my /etc/nginx/sites-available/api.mysite.com file (sym linked into sites-enabled):
server {
listen 80;
# server_name ~^(?<login>[a-z]+)\.api\.mysite\.com$;
server_name api.mysite.com$;
location / {
# root /var/www/html/myNodeAppRoot;
# proxy_pass http://unix:/tmp/\$login.api.mysite.com.sock:$uri$is_args$args;
proxy_pass http://unix:/tmp/api.mysite.com.sock:$uri$is_args$args;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
}
}
And here's my default.conf file:
#
# The default server
#
server {
listen 80 default_server;
server_name www.mysite.com;
#charset koi8-r;
#access_log logs/host.access.log main;
location / {
root /var/www/html;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
}
error_page 404 /404.html;
location = /404.html {
root /var/www/html;
}
# redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
#
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
location = /50x.html {
root /var/www/html;
}
# proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80
#
#location ~ \.php$ {
# proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1;
#}
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
#
location ~ \.php$ {
root /var/www/html;
try_files $uri =404;
# fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_pass unix:/tmp/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
# fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /scripts$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
# deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
# concurs with nginx's one
#
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
}
Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

I run a bunch of Node.js applications on the same server, while nginx serves some static content. Here's my setup:
# the meteor server
server {
server_name example.com;
access_log /etc/nginx/logs/example.access;
error_log /etc/nginx/logs/example.error error;
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:3030;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
}
}
I just repeat this block and change the port for each new Node.js app. Then I run Node.js with a different --port 3030 parameter.

Answer 2

nginx can be configured to use unix sockets, which look like an item in the file system. Node supports these out of the box. This allows you to avoid any issues with ports behind nginx.
A good tutorial for setting up a Node app with nginx and sockets can be found here.