Docker Nginx Proxy

A basic reverse proxy designed to simplify header manipulation.

Usage

To configure the upstream, create an app.conf with a server block:

server{listen8080;location / {proxy_passhttp://app:80;}}

The file must be placed in /etc/nginx.

Header manipulation

Within the server block you can maniplate headers using the headers-more module:

server{
...
 # Remove a header
more_clear_headers "Server"; # Set a header
more_set_headers 'X-Robots-Tag: "noindex, nofollow"';
...
}

Tracing

Add observability by enabling trace propagation and sending telemetry data to an OTel collector:

otel_trace on;
otel_service_name example_service:nginx;
otel_trace_context propagate;
otel_exporter {
endpoint otel-collector:4317;
interval 5s;
batch_size 512;
batch_count 4;}

Further customisation

Since you're defining a standard server block, you can configure it however you like over and above just header manipulation. For example, you can add a custom location:

server{
...
 # Use the default robots.txt to disallow all botslocation /robots.txt {alias /etc/nginx/robots.txt;}
...
}

Logging

To change how logging is configured, mount a file at /etc/nginx/log.conf:

access_log off;error_log off;

Core configuration

It's also possible to modify core configuration such as those in the main section by mounting a file at /etc/nginx/main.conf:

worker_processes auto;worker_shutdown_timeout300s;

It's important to note that overriding this file will remove the current defaults hence it's always a good idea to start with a copy of the defaults.

Health check

A health check is available on port 18081 at /healthz.