kieraneglin

kieraneglin

Setting up an Elixir/Phoenix app as a reverse proxy

I’m looking to set up an Elixir/Phoenix app in front of an existing application and have this app act as a queuing system during high load events. This is probably never going to see real-world action as I’m mostly looking to learn more about this side of things.

I’ve never created an application to act as a reverse proxy but it seems like something Elixir/Erlang would handle well. Is there a recommended way to handle this? Any packages/articles to handle this would be appreciated!

Most Liked

cmkarlsson

cmkarlsson

A reverse proxy behind apache/nginx is very common. I run a couple of deployments like this where I have a phoenix application mixed in among normal php apps.

For normal HTTP/HTTPs traffic I’ve used both apache and nginx but I had problems getting apache work with websockets (I did not spend too much time on it though).

In apache you need the following configuration:

<VirtualHost *:443>
   ...
   ProxyPass "/yourapp" http://127.0.0.1:4000/
   ProxyPassReverse "/yourapp" http://127.0.0.1:4000/
   ...
</VirtualHost>

And you need the apache mod_proxy module (mox_proxy_http mod_proxy_wstunnel)

For nginx this can be achieved with (and this includes web sockets):

server {
...
  
   location /yourapp { 
      ...
      proxy_http_version 1.1;
    
      proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
      proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
      proxy_set_header X-Cluster-Client-Ip $remote_addr;

      proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
      proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";

      proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
     ...
  }
}

You also need to configure your phoenix endpoint (Phoenix.Endpoint — Phoenix v1.8.8)
Especially url: [host: "your.host.name", path: "/yourapp", port: 80]
The path is what you use in the ProxyPass directive and the port is the port apache/nginx is running on.

I wish I had saved the sources of this information, then you could read a bit more about it. I was certain that phoenix official documentation had a chapter on reverse proxy with nginx but couldn’t find it.

jwoods1

jwoods1

If you want simple try Caddy server this was way easier to get started with when I compare it to Apache or Nginx

rjk

rjk

There is a “plug” you can use (middleware for the phoenix router pipeline) which can do this for you, see: reverse_proxy_plug/README.md at master · tallarium/reverse_proxy_plug · GitHub

Have fun with it! :slight_smile:

Where Next?

Popular in Questions Top

vonH
In asking this question I am more interested about the expressiveness of the language itself and less concerned about the availability of...
New
hariharasudhan94
I would like to know what is the best IDE for elixir development?
New
Brian
What is the proper way to load a module from a file in to IEX? In the python world, doing something like this pretty standard: from ....
New
openscript
Hello! Sorry for this astonishing simple question, but I’m really stuck. I try to set up the intellij-elixir plugin, but I don’t know ho...
New
sergio_101
I am VERY much an elixir newbie. I have taken one elixir course and one phoenix course on Udemy. During that course, I saw the instructor...
New
bsollish-terakeet
Credo is smart enough to check for (something like) this: assert length(the_list) == 0 with this response: Checking if an enum is empt...
New
freewebwithme
Using vs code and installed ElixirLS: support and debugger. And I got an error popped up on start up says Failed to run ‘elixir’ comma...
New

Other popular topics Top

chrismccord
Phoenix 1.4.0 released Phoenix 1.4 is out! This release ships with exciting new features, most notably with HTTP2 support, improved deve...
688 31586 112
New
axelson
This post is a wiki (feel free to hit the edit button near the bottom right of this post to add your own changes!) This post collects co...
239 49266 226
New
AstonJ
Seen any cool LiveView demos, sample apps or examples? Please post them here! :003:
New
alice
Hey, Just curious what are the main benefits of Elixir compared to Clojure? When is Elixir more useful than Clojure and vice versa? Th...
New
saif
Hello everyone, Long time lurker first time poster here. I’ve recently begun working on Elixir full-time again! :raised_hands: It’s been...
New
AngeloChecked
What learn first? Rust or Elixir Hi Elixir community! I’m here because i want learn a new language. I’m a junior developer and mainly i ...
New

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement