Deploying a Spring Boot Application Behind NGINX with SSL

Introduction Spring Boot applications are usually deployed with the embedded Tomcat server, but many developers prefer to place them behind NGINX for better security and flexibility. This article shows how to deploy a Spring Boot JAR or WAR behind an SSL‑enabled NGINX reverse proxy.

Prepare the Spring Boot Application Set the servlet context path in application.yml (e.g., server.servlet.contextPath=/myapplication) so the app is reachable at http://localhost:8080/myapplication. Build the JAR/WAR and transfer it to the server via FTP or SSH.

Prepare the Server Environment On a Debian 9 VM, install the required packages: sudo apt update && sudo apt install openjdk-11-jdk ufw nginx (or use Oracle JDK via the webupd8 PPA). Enable the firewall to allow only NGINX traffic:

sudo systemctl start ufw && sudo systemctl enable ufw && sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'

. Start and enable NGINX: sudo systemctl start nginx && sudo systemctl enable nginx.

Run the Spring Boot Application as a Background Service Create a systemd service file /etc/systemd/system/myapplication.service with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=My Spring Boot Application
After=network.target

[Service]
User=your_user
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -jar /path/to/myapplication.jar
Restart=always
StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
SyslogIdentifier=myapplication

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start the service and verify it:

sudo systemctl start myapplication.service
journalctl -u myapplication -b

.

Configure NGINX as a Reverse Proxy Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/myserver.com (replace myserver.com with your domain) with the following configuration:

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name myserver.com;

    location /myapplication {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8080/;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port $server_port;
    }
}

Test the configuration with sudo nginx -t and reload NGINX: sudo systemctl restart nginx.

Enable HTTPS with SSL Install Certbot and the NGINX plugin:

sudo apt-get install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -t stretch-backports

. Obtain a certificate and configure NGINX automatically: sudo certbot --nginx certonly. Verify renewal works: sudo certbot renew --dry-run. If you already have certificates, edit the NGINX server block to use them instead.

Summary Running a Spring Boot application behind NGINX provides a lightweight, secure deployment that avoids many Tomcat‑related issues. The setup allows easy SSL configuration, logs to the system journal, and treats the application as a standard Linux service, simplifying management and scaling.