edm00se
commented
4 years ago Hi Mike. I missed you by a few years as I didn't make it over until '08, but always nice to run into a fellow vet.
It sounds like you have a nice growing setup, so growing pains are inevitable. If you're set on using a Windows Server instance w/ Nginx to work as a reverse proxy, being the sole outward facing server that forwards requests between your external and internal servers, then I recommend reading through the Nginx guide on reverse proxying. The basic premise is to use proxy_pass to point to the internal destination, based on your matching route (e.g.- /assistant/, etc.), it would looks something like this:
location /route/ {
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9000;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
}I've gone this route in limited quantities a few times and it has served me well. I included some of the other headers that can/may be used for better identifying additional information. Serving out the traffic over HTTPS and using the Nginx instance for SSL termination may be something you need to do, so above the locaton blocks, at the server "listen" block when you define port to listen on, I wouldn't even turn on port 80/http. Using routes like this will force everything under a "subdirectory" from an external perspective, although there are other ways than this sort of thing.
More advanced configurations can get a bit hairy, so take your time and try to keep everything straight. It's enough of a topic that freecodecamp even has their own guide to the process, in combination with Docker and Lets Encrypt, to automate the certificate portion (and looks useful to those getting started with it, if you don't mind rolling a container instance in Docker).
An alternative you may wish to consider a tool to somewhat automate this for you. This Caddy server looks to attempt to fill that space and is open source and hosted on GitHub. I haven't used it myself, but it may be worth a look to see if that's something you want to try.
Best of luck!
ae8u
First thanks for your service. I was in OIF as well. I was in Iraq in 2004.
Now for my question. Here is the situation: I run a Windows Server 2012 R2 with a domain. I am now adding Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi (and running Raspbian).
I want to be able to log into the Home Assistant when we are away from home to monitor things. I have registered my own domain on Amazon Route 53, and have it set up so that it tracks my external IP address, just like DDNS programs such as DuckDNS would do. I initially set up port forwarding on my router to forward port 443 to the Pi and it all worked, so I know it is all set up correctly up to that point.
Unfortunately, I also have some other programs that require https access so I can't just leave it set up to do the port forwarding on my router.
All that said I am now trying to set up Nginx on the Windows Server. I have got that done, and I have it set up to run as a service. But I am struggling with getting the nginx.conf file written correctly. I cant get it to start, now that it is a service. it keeps giving an error 1067, which I think means there is a problem with the nginx.conf file. What would the nginx.conf file look like to get the Windows server to listen on port 443 and if it sees a call for my Home Assistant domain, it forwards to the Raspberry Pi, otherwise it just lets the 443 traffic go on to the PC that is trying to pass traffic on port 443?
I hope this all makes sense, and that I have explained it all correctly. I am into new territory for me and I am a little lost on what to do next.
Thanks, Mike