Implementing nginx-proxy with IPv6

[rafalrozek]

I'm totally newbie and I'm trying to introduce nginx-proxy on my server.
I had docker-compose.yml like that:

version: '3'
services:
    web:
        container_name: ci4-web
        build:
            context: ./docker
        ports:
            - 80:80
        volumes:
            - .:/var/www/html/bank/

With apache config:

<VirtualHost [::]:80>
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/bank/public/"
    ServerName bank.local
    <Directory "/var/www/html/bank/public/">
        AllowOverride all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

And everything worked fine. But I want to move this page to subdomain. I modified docker-compose.yml to that:

version: '2'

services:
  nginx-proxy:
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
    environment:
      - ENABLE_IPV6=true

  web:
    container_name: ci4-web
    build:
      context: ./bank-website/docker/
    expose:
      - "8000"
        
    volumes:
      - ./bank-website/:/var/www/html/bank/
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=bank.local
      - VIRTUAL_PORT=8000

But now, bank.mywebsite.com is not working ("This site can’t be reached"). What I'm doing wrong?
Thanks for any hint.

[buchdag]

Hi.

Your ci4-web's apache config says it's listening on port 80 but on your second compose file you're exposing and using VIRTUAL_PORT with port 8000. Which one is it ?

You're using bank.local as a VIRTUAL_HOST in your compose file and testing bank.mywebsite.com. Which one is it ?

Also ENABLE_IPV6 is for IPv6 support between the nginx-proxy container and the proxied containers, not for IPv6 support between the outside world and the nginx-proxy container, are you sure that's what you want to achieve ?

[rafalrozek]

Thank you for response.

• Of course, I should expose and use port 80 on ci4-web
• Ok, so I understand that I should enter my public domain name in VIRTUAL_HOST (bank.mywebsite.com)
• I want to expose my nginx-proxy on IPv6 address of my server. But I think it's exposed correctly because mywebsite.com response is 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable. Something is wrong with ci4-web configuration.

My current docker-compose.yml:

version: '2'

services:
  nginx-proxy:
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro

  web:
    container_name: ci4-web
    build:
      context: ./bank-website/docker/
    expose:
      - "80"
    volumes:
      - ./bank-website/:/var/www/html/bank/
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=bank.mywebsite.com
      - VIRTUAL_PORT=80

But bank.mywebsite.com still not responding.

[tkw1536]

I want to expose my nginx-proxy on IPv6 address of my server. But I think it's exposed correctly because mywebsite.com response is 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable. Something is wrong with ci4-web configuration.

This sounds like ipv6 support is working correctly, but nginx-proxy cannot reach the ci4-web container.
I would expect the same failure to occur when using ipv4.

When a browser attempts to connect to bank.mywebsite.com nginx-proxy will receive the request (be it via ipv4 or via ipv6) and then internally forward it to ci4-web.

This internal forwarding will always use the private addresses of the web and nginx-proxy containers, regardless of what the public protocol is. The private addresses are typically private ipv4 addresses. But that doesn't matter because the forwarding uses http and lives on the application layer - not on the network layer (see OSI model if you don't know what layers I am talking about).

To verify my hypothesis above, compare the output of curl --ipv6 bank.example.com and curl --ipv4 bank.example.com. My guess is they will both show 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable.

I want to expose my nginx-proxy on IPv6 address of my server. But I think it's exposed correctly because mywebsite.com response is 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable. Something is wrong with ci4-web configuration.

Probably your hypothesis is correct - something is wrong with the ci4-web configuration.
If I remember my apache configuration right it should be enough for apache to listen on port 80 like so:

Listen 80
<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/bank/public/"
    ServerName bank.mywebsite.com
    <Directory "/var/www/html/bank/public/">
        AllowOverride all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

It does not have to listen on ipv6 adresses, because your container doesn't have any.
It might also be nginx-proxy cannot connect to the container because it doesn't actually listen on that port.
Have you tried connecting to it directly and/or looking at the logs?

[rafalrozek]

Thank you a lot. I experimented a lot with curl and now I'm sure that ci4-web configuration is ok. I changed docker-compose.yml to this:

version: '2'

services:
  nginx-proxy:
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
    environment:
      - DEFAULT_HOST=bank.example.com

  web:
    container_name: ci4-web
    build:
      context: ./bank-website/docker/
    volumes:
      - ./bank-website/:/var/www/html/bank/
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=bank.example.com
    

And now when i go to http://www.example.com I see my website correctly. But bank.example.com or any other subdomain still not working

root@me:~# curl --ipv6 bank.example.com
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: bank.example.com

[tkw1536]

This last error doesn’t look like an issue with nginx proxy, it looks like bank.example.com doesn’t have an AAAA dns record.