Nginx as a reverse proxy to a Tomcat instance via the HTTP connector

ajphttpnginxtomcat

I'm dropping Apache as a reverse proxy to a Tomcat instance, mainly because it has no other purpose other than forwarding requests to the Tomcat instance.

I'm no expert at deploying Java Web applications with Tomcat and I'm wondering if I'm running in for a nasty surprise if I use Nginx to forward requests to the HTTP connector?

Best Answer

Yeah, that'll work just fine.

From the tag, I'm guessing you're using an AJP connector right now? You'll just need to make sure that your HTTP listener is working right; otherwise, there should be no problem. Nginx works great as a reverse proxy.

Related Solutions

Nginx – the best nginx compression gzip level

The level of gzip compression simply determines how compressed the data is on a scale from 1-9, where 9 is the most compressed. The trade-off is that the most compressed data usually requires the most work to compress/decompress, so if you have it set fairly high on a high-volume website, you may feel its effect.

It sounds like your issues are more related to the HTTP headers on the requests. Usually gzip-compressed HTTP traffic is accompanied by the Content-Encoding: gzip header. If this is being dropped somewhere, then the client might not know to have to decompress the response.

Nginx Reverse Proxy – Forward Custom Header

The proxy_set_header directive from the HttpProxyModule allows you to do this. For example:

proxy_pass http://apachehost;
proxy_set_header X-Custom-Referrer $proxy_add_<header_field_name_from_last_request>;

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Nginx – the best nginx compression gzip level

Nginx Reverse Proxy – Forward Custom Header

Related Topic