Deploying Nginx with Docker for SpringBoot Microservices and Gateway Integration

In microservice projects each service often has its own port; binding a domain name and using Nginx can simplify access and solve CORS.

Install Nginx

Pull the Nginx image and start a container:

docker pull nginx:1.10
docker run -p 80:80 --name nginx -d nginx:1.10

Copy the configuration files from the container: docker container cp nginx:/etc/nginx . Rename the extracted folder to conf, create an nginx directory and move the config inside:

mv nginx conf
mkdir nginx
mv conf/ nginx/

Start a new Nginx instance with volume mappings:

docker run -p 80:80 --name nginx \
    -v /mydata/nginx/html:/usr/share/nginx/html \
    -v /mydata/nginx/logs:/var/log/nginx \
    -v /mydata/nginx/conf:/etc/nginx \
    -d nginx:1.10

Prepare a SpringBoot application

Add Maven dependencies for Thymeleaf, Web and Nacos discovery:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.alibaba.cloud</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-alibaba-nacos-discovery</artifactId>
</dependency>

Register the service in Nacos:

spring:
  cloud:
    nacos:
      discovery:
        server-addr: 192.168.66.10:8848
  application:
    name: SpringBootDemo

Run the application and verify http://localhost:8080/.

Map a custom domain by adding an entry to the Windows hosts file: 192.168.66.10 myspringboot.com On the Linux host, create a configuration file in /mydata/nginx/conf/conf.d (e.g., mysb.conf) with:

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  myspringboot.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://192.168.0.105:8080/;
    }

    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }
}

Add a gateway

Register a Spring Cloud Gateway service in Nacos (dependencies include spring-cloud-starter-gateway) and configure its application name and port.

Define an upstream in Nginx:

upstream my_gateway{
        server 192.168.0.105:9000; # gateway address
}

Update the server block to forward requests to the gateway:

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  myspringboot.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://my_gateway; # forward to gateway
    }

    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }
}

Configure the gateway routes to forward all paths to the SpringBoot service:

spring:
  cloud:
    gateway:
      routes:
        - id: springbootdemo_route
          uri: lb://SpringBootDemo
          predicates:
            - Path=/**

Now accessing http://myspringboot.com/ goes through Nginx, then the gateway, and finally reaches the SpringBoot service.