How to reverse proxy in Caddy v2

Servers Server Software
1

Have you ever wanted to setup a reverse proxy that is super simple to setup and maintain (with SSL by default)? Its pretty simple with Caddy v2,

Prereqs

  • Install your OS (check out my video on installing Ubuntu here)
  • Install Caddyv2 (check out my post on installing Caddy here)
  • Port 80 and 443 open on your firewall pointed at your Server
  • DNS record pointed to your public IP

Default Configuration

When you first install Caddy, you will get a blank Caddyfile like below

# The Caddyfile is an easy way to configure your Caddy web server.
#
# Unless the file starts with a global options block, the first
# uncommented line is always the address of your site.
#
# To use your own domain name (with automatic HTTPS), first make
# sure your domain's A/AAAA DNS records are properly pointed to
# this machine's public IP, then replace ":80" below with your
# domain name.

:80 {
        # Set this path to your site's directory.
        root * /usr/share/caddy

        # Enable the static file server.
        file_server

        # Another common task is to set up a reverse proxy:
        # reverse_proxy localhost:8080

        # Or serve a PHP site through php-fpm:
        # php_fastcgi localhost:9000
}

# Refer to the Caddy docs for more information:
# https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile

Configure Reverse Proxy

Its really, really simple, I used the default port 80 rule to forward any un-handled requests back to IT Bible.

nano /etc/caddy/Caddyfile


:80 {
        redir https://itbible.org # Just added this line to handle requests that aren't defined
}

mm.itbible.io { # this handles the reverse proxy for mm.itbible.io and forwards the request to our Mattermost server
        reverse_proxy 10.1.1.6:8065
}

wiki.itbible.io { # this handles the reverse proxy to the wiki at wiki.itbible.io
        reverse_proxy 10.1.1.7:8080
}

status.itbible.io { # this handles all the requests to my uptime kuma docker container
        reverse_proxy 10.1.1.7:3001
}

Bring it all up

Now all you need to do is run

systemctl reload caddy.service

and this will generate all of your SSL certificates with letsencrypt and starts the reverse proxy.