So, I have some idea on what a reverse proxy does and will be using nginx (with the neat proxy manager UI) for my setup.
However, I’m not completely clear what exactly I want it to do and how I cn use it to run different services on one machine. I’m especially unclear on the ports configuration … tutorials will say things like “change the listening port to xxx for that service and to port yyy for the other service”
How does this work, which ports can I use and how do I need to configure the respective services?
EDIT: thanks everybody, your replies did help me a lot! I have my basic setup now up and running using portainer + nginx + fail2ban.
If I can add to this … what’s the sort of etymology for the term. Why is it a reverse proxy exactly?
In the long long ago it was reasonably common (particularly on corporate or school/uni networks) to force all web traffic outbound from browsers through a proxy.
They’d then use these proxies to enforce policies (block sites basically) and often cache stuff too, important when internet connections sucked.
So generally proxies sit on the same network as the clients (browsers).
Reverse proxies sit on the same network as the servers.
Standard proxy is when your outgoing traffic is proxied through it. Reverse is when the incoming traffic is proxied.
Thanks!!