Quickly Deploy Nginx Proxy Manager with Docker and Enable HTTPS

Introduce Nginx Proxy Manager, an open‑source reverse‑proxy UI built on NGINX, offering a web UI, SSL via Let’s Encrypt, and user management.

Features

Beautiful UI based on Tabler.

Create domain forwards, redirects, streams, 404 hosts without deep Nginx knowledge.

Free SSL via Let’s Encrypt or custom certificates.

Host access lists and basic HTTP authentication.

Advanced Nginx configuration for superusers.

User management, permissions, and audit logs.

Installation

1. Install Docker and Docker‑Compose

2. Create docker‑compose.yml

version: '3'
services:
  app:
    image: 'jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest'
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - '80:80'
      - '81:81'
      - '443:443'
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
      - ./letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt

3. Run the containers

docker-compose up -d
# If using the docker‑compose plugin
docker compose up -d

4. Access the UI

Open http://127.0.0.1:81 in a browser.

5. Log in

Default credentials are [email protected] / changeme. Change the password on first login.

6. Main dashboard

Practical Example: Reverse‑Proxy the Admin UI

Goal: expose the Nginx Proxy Manager UI at http://a.test.com with HTTPS.

Prerequisites

Nginx Proxy Manager installed.

A domain name pointing to the server’s IP.

Step‑by‑step

Open the UI at ip:81 and log in.

Click “Add Proxy Host”. In the Details form fill:

Save the proxy host.

Obtain an SSL certificate for a.test.com via the “Access Lists → Add SSL Certificate → Let’s Encrypt” workflow.

In the proxy host settings, select the new certificate and enable “Force SSL”.

After these steps, a.test.com serves the admin UI over HTTPS, and the original port 81 can be closed.

Conclusion

The guide covered installing Nginx Proxy Manager with Docker, basic UI navigation, and configuring a reverse proxy with automatic HTTPS.

Official documentation: https://nginxproxymanager.com/guide/