Configure Nginx reverse proxy with SSL in Ubuntu

The steps to configure Nginx reverse proxy in Ubuntu are as follows

1. Install nginx
sudo apt-get install nginx
sudo service nginx start
sudo chkconfig nginx on

2. Go to nginx config file directory
cd /etc/nginx/

3. backup current nginx config file
mv /etc/nginx/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf-back

4. Create a new config file with the following content
vim /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
======
# For more information on configuration, see:
# * Official English Documentation: http://nginx.org/en/docs/
# * Official Russian Documentation: http://nginx.org/ru/docs/

#user nginx;
user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
pid /var/run/nginx.pid;

events {
worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
log_format main ‘$remote_addr – $remote_user [$time_local] “$request” ‘
‘$status $body_bytes_sent “$http_referer” ‘
‘”$http_user_agent” “$http_x_forwarded_for”‘;

access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;

sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
types_hash_max_size 2048;

include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;

# Load modular configuration files from the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory.
# See http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#include
# for more information.
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;

index index.html index.htm;

}
======

5. enable reverse proxy
cd /etc/nginx/conf.d
vim example.conf
======
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name example.com;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/cert.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;

location / {
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
}
}
=====

6. Check if the configurations are correct

nginx configtest

or

nginx -t

If there is no errors in the configuration, restart nginx

service nginx restart