Nginx as a proxy for tomcat with subdirectory

nginx tomcat reverse-proxy

19,110

I think you added something / extra in your config settings...

Look at this line:

proxy_pass http://IP_ADD_TOMCAT_SERVER:8080/;

you need to remove the trailing slash and it should work fine.

like this:

proxy_pass http://IP_ADD_TOMCAT_SERVER:8080;

try it out and see if things go fine!!

Update#1 I just noticed that you have another mistake "same typo" in your location /

remove the 2nd slash and it should work fine!!

like this : location /demo { instead of this location /demo/ {

Update #1: you can test your url using this

$ curl -I http://yoururl.com

and see what result gives you. this way you know if it is working or not.

Update #3:

your setting to work with any .jsp extension should have this code in your vhost:

location ~ \.jsp$ {
    proxy_pass              http://localhost:8080;
    proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header        Host $http_host;
  }

also to get /demo to work , you need to add rewrite code below server_name example.com

rewrite ^/(.*)$ /demo/$1;

19,110

Xianlin

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Xianlin almost 2 years
I want to set up a Nginx Proxy for the Tomcat server with my domain name such as
```
example.com/demo/sample
example.com/demo/manager
example.com/demo/other_apps
...
```
Here is my Nginx server block configuration
```
server {
        listen   80;

        server_name example.com;

        location /demo/ {

        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP  $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_pass http://IP_ADD_TOMCAT_SERVER:8080/;

        }

        location ~ /\.ht {
                deny all;
        }

## Only allow these request methods ##
     if ($request_method !~ ^(GET|HEAD|POST)$ ) {
         return 444;
     }
## Do not accept DELETE, SEARCH and other methods ##

}
```
I encountered 2 problems here:

The First Problem:

if TOM_CAT_INSTALL_DIR/webapps/sample/ contains a static page hello.jsp, it works with URL:

example.com/demo/app1/

but not works with URL:

example.com/demo/app1

Why I must add a trailing slash / at the end of URL to make the nginx proxy working?

The Second Problem:

If TOM_CAT_INSTALL_DIR/webapps/manager contains a index.jsp file which is a dynamic webpage, it does not work with URL

example.com/demo/manager/

The URL becomes

example.com/manager/....

Followed by a long list of parameters.

if I manually add /demo/ string to the web browser URL, it works again.

How should I make the nginx proxy works with sub-directory /demo/?

Update: I found out the missing rewrite problem for tomcat manager subdirecotry is that in the index.jsp file, the request.getContextPath() will NOT automatically add /demo/ subdirecotry into the URL. It seems we have to manually modify the .jsp file code.

If you don't know how to modify the jsp code as I do, you can work around it by using the below code in Nginx
```
# Must add the trailing '/' for both location and proxy_pass
 location /demo/ {
                proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
                proxy_set_header Host $host;
                proxy_pass http://TOM_CAT_SERVER_IP_ADDR:8080/;
        }

# ONLY work for manager apps, for other apps, 
# You must add more rewrite rules like the below
        location /manager/ {
                rewrite ^/(.*)$ /demo/$1 last;
        }
```
- Digital site about 10 years
  
  if example.com/demo/manager/ becomes example.com/manager/ that means you have a rewrite rule there or the file itself has a rewrite rule. by the way, I don't see the root in your config settings!! you have to have a root so that the server can tell where the root is...
- Xianlin about 10 years
  
  the tomcat server is not running on the nginx server so I couldn't possibly set the root=/path/to/tomcat on nginx server file system. Or can I?
- Digital site about 10 years
  
  so how do you use Tomcat with Nginx then? isn't it as a proxy? can you explain what your server structure?
- Xianlin about 10 years
  
  Nginx is a proxy server, Tomcat is a java app server, they are on the same network with 2 IP addresses. A very simple server structure.
- Digital site about 10 years
  
  ok, I thought different thing. I just noticed that you found the solution to your issue, which is something you updated in your original question. glad to hear things now work for you.
Digital site about 10 years

I just updated the answer because I found out what the second issue is about!
Xianlin about 10 years

I remove the both '/' but example.com/demo/app1 still gives me 404 error
Digital site about 10 years

ok, quick question, location /demo/ is it a folder or a subdomain?
Xianlin about 10 years

location /demo/ does not exist as a folder, you can see it as a domain in which I also can use demo.example.com. But I want to use example.com/demo/ instead.
Digital site about 10 years

in this case it is a subdomain, and you need therefore to configure this subdomain so that it works either demo.example.com or example.com/demo. I will update the answer soon