Setup Nginx reverse proxy (with ssl termination) on OSX

• 2 min read • toolstesting

To test Google Game Services integration locally, I wanted my local machine to be accessible over https on something other than locahost or 127.0.0.1. So I decided to employ localtest.me and use nginx locally as ssl terminating reverse proxy to my app running on port 9999.

Install nginx:

brew install nginx

Generate self-signed certificate:

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /usr/local/etc/nginx/cert.key -out /usr/local/etc/nginx/cert.crt

Nginx.conf:

# Important! I had to change this to myself (artem) or it wouldn't serve js assets with "permission denied".
# Group is mandatory despite nginx docs claiming otherwise.
user  artem admin;

worker_processes  1;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    sendfile        on;

    keepalive_timeout  65;

    server {
        listen       443 ssl;
        server_name  abc.localtest.me;

        ssl_certificate      cert.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key  cert.key;

        ssl_session_cache    shared:SSL:1m;
        ssl_session_timeout  5m;

        ssl_ciphers  HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers  on;

        location / {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:9999;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
            proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        }
        # Proxy websocket connections (you probably don't need this)
        location /games/play/ {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:9999;
            proxy_http_version 1.1;
            proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
            proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        }
    }
}

Start nginx as sudo:

sudo nginx

Test it: https://abc.localtest.me