How to configure Nginx as a reverse proxy for Apache on CentOS

phillip April 25, 2020 Tutorial

Introduction

In this tutorial, we are going to combine the two web servers (Apache and Nginx) to get the best result of each other, We are going to set Nginx as our static content processor and Apache to processing the back end and dynamic content.

We are assuming that you have root permission, otherwise, you may start commands with “sudo”.

Step 1 — Installing Nginx

Run an update on your repositories list first:

$ yum update -y

Now install Epel repository easily with:

$ yum install epel-release -y

Then install nginx using the command below:

$ yum install nginx -y

Enable and start Nginx service:

$ systemctl enable nginx
$ systemctl start nginx

Step 2 — Configuring Nginx

Create a config file with the following command:

$ nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

Paste the following configuration in your file then save and exit:

server {
listen 80;
root /usr/share/nginx/html/;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name _;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
}
location ~ \.php$ {

proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
}
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
}

Step 3 — Installing Apache

If you have Apache already installed you can skip this section.

Install Apache web server with the command below:

$ yum install httpd

Start and enable the httpd service:

$ systemctl enable httpd
$ systemctl start httpd

Step 4 — Configuring Apache

We need to configure the Apache to take the backend part of the job, for that cause we need to configure the Apache to listen on port 8080:

$ nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Find the line that starts with “listen” remove it and paste the following lines instead:

Listen 127.0.0.1:8080

Then find the line that starts with “DocumentRoot” and modify it like below:

DocumentRoot “/usr/share/nginx/html/”

The “DocumentRoot” should be the same on both Nginx and Apache, If you have VirtualHost(s) configured, it should be configured on both of them.

Save and Exit.