Caddy: Reverse Proxy

Introduction

Caddy makes setting up a reverse proxy with Automatic HTTPS very trivial as the examples below show. They both:

• Proxy all, including WebSocket, traffic from https://bana.io/api to a server called backend listening on port 8080, see reverse-proxy.
• Enables directory browsing, see browse.
• Enables gzip compression gzip.
• Turn on request logging, see log.
• Enable error logging. Although this isn’t strictly needed, it helps to turn it on.

Prerequisites

Setup DNS records to point to the server that is going to run Caddy. This is the simpler approach and that used in the examples. See DNS Challenge.

The certificates obtained are stored on disk in the folder $HOME/.caddy or, if $HOME is not set, in the current working directory of the caddy process in a folder named .caddy. If you’re running Caddy via Docker, it’s a good idea to make sure that you use volumes for this/these.

Development Caddyfile

When you’re initially developing it’s a good idea to test against the staging/development url, see Testing, developing, and advanced setups. We do this by specifying the ca as https://acme-staging-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory, otherwise it is identical to the production Caddyfile.

bana.io www.bana.io {
  proxy /api backend:8080 {
    websocket
    transparent
  }

  tls m@bana.io {
    ca https://acme-staging-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
  }

  log stdout
  errors stderr

  browse
  gzip
}

Production Caddyfile

bana.io www.bana.io {
  proxy /api backend:8080 {
    websocket
    transparent
  }

  tls m@bana.io

  log stdout
  errors stderr

  browse
  gzip
}

Run

Use the caddy-docker Docker image or:

$ caddy --conf Caddyfile --log stdout --agree=yes