Docker Nginx on a non-docker host application - docker

Question

I have many docker containers which pass through docker nginx combo (docker-compose.yml outlined below) and they work very well. I want docker nginx to do the same to a non-docker app thats running on localhost:8080, that is I want docker nginx container to run connections to example.com to 127.0.0.1:8080 where 127.0.0.1:8080 is ran by a non-docker app (code-server do be specific but that shouldn't matter)
version: '3'
services:
nginx-proxy:
image: jwilder/nginx-proxy
container_name: nginx-proxy
ports:
- "80:80"
- "443:443"
volumes:
- /apps/proxy/conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
- /apps/proxy/vhost:/etc/nginx/vhost.d
- /apps/proxy/html:/usr/share/nginx/html
- /apps/proxy/dhparam:/etc/nginx/dhparam
- /apps/proxy/certs:/etc/nginx/certs:ro
- /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
restart: always
letsencrypt:
image: jrcs/letsencrypt-nginx-proxy-companion
container_name: nginx-proxy-le
depends_on:
- nginx-proxy
volumes:
- /apps/proxy/vhost:/etc/nginx/vhost.d
- /apps/proxy/html:/usr/share/nginx/html
- /apps/proxy/dhparam:/etc/nginx/dhparam:ro
- /apps/proxy/certs:/etc/nginx/certs
- /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
environment:
- NGINX_PROXY_CONTAINER=nginx-proxy
restart: always
networks:
default:
external:
name: nginx-proxy
and its running well on docker containers, the moment i include "nginx-proxy" so that it can detect them, fantastic tool. I cant simply paste something like this into default.conf (conf of nginx )
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name example.com;
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080/;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection upgrade;
proxy_set_header Accept-Encoding gzip;
}
}
My guess is that what is "localhost" for me is not "localhost" for nginx given that it is inside a docker (im new to this docker stuff, so I might be talking shit). I saw the issue where they mentioned many approaches, none of them worked for me. In particular I tried running a dummy docker as CWempe suggested
docker run -d \
-e VIRTUAL_HOST=foo.bar.com \
-e VIRTUAL_PORT=8080 \
-e UPSTREAM_NAME=webserver.local \
--rm \
cwempe/docker-dummy:latest
This didnt't work, nginx didnt even detect it which made me think its probably because its not on the nginx-network so i added that (and turned it into docker-compose for convenience)
version: '3.3'
services:
docker-dummy:
environment:
- VIRTUAL_HOST=example.com
- VIRTUAL_PORT=8080
- UPSTREAM_NAME=127.0.0.1
image: 'cwempe/docker-dummy:latest'
networks:
default:
external:
name: nginx-proxy
Then looking at default.conf i get
# mydomain.com
upstream mydomain.com {
## Can be connected with "nginx-proxy" network
# code-server_docker-dummy_1
server 172.25.0.7 down;
}
server {
server_name mydomain.com;
listen 80 ;
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log vhost;
include /etc/nginx/vhost.d/default;
location / {
proxy_pass http://example.com;
}
}
server {
server_name example.com;
listen 443 ssl http2 ;
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log vhost;
return 500;
ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/certs/default.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/certs/default.key;
}
So sure it has seen it but it also believes it is down and doesn't include the VIRTUAL_PORT at all and obviously the 127.25.0.7 IP doesn't make sense to me either. Changing 127.25.0.7 -> 127.0.0.1:8080 does nothing. Any idea how I can remedy this ? Thank you for your input in advance.