Hosting multiple ASP NET Core sites on unbuntu and nginx as reverse proxy

Question

I am trying to host multiple ASP NET Core sites with different domains on Linux, Unbunt 18.04 and using nginx as reverse proxy.

These are the steps:

1) Creating new .conf files in /etc/nginx/sites-available

2) Creating folders in /var/www/ and uploadin the .net app

3) Creating new .service files for each .conf file

The default nginx .conf is unchanged.

The .conf files look like this:

server {
    listen        80;
    server_name   domain;
    location / {
        proxy_pass         http://localhost:5000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header   Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   Connection keep-alive;
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

The .service files look like this:

[Unit]
Description=Event Registration Example

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/example
ExecStart=/usr/bin/dotnet /var/www/example/example.dll
Restart=always
# Restart service after 10 seconds if the dotnet service crashes:
RestartSec=10
KillSignal=SIGINT
SyslogIdentifier=dotnet-example
Environment=ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production
Environment=DOTNET_PRINT_TELEMETRY_MESSAGE=false

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

With this configuration, even I deploy few sites, all of them are redirected to same content. My goal is to host multiple .net core apps on same server. How the configuration should look like?

Answer 1

I had a similar issue.

Each of your applications nginx config files should point to the correct port number that the .Net Core application is set to run on.

This is determined in each of your .Net Core applications program.cs in the .UseUrls() extension, e.g.

public static IWebHost CreateWebHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
            WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
                .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
                .UseUrls("http://0.0.0.0:2001")
                .UseStartup<Startup>()
                .Build();

Each application will need to have a different port number and have this reflected in its nginx config files, like so:

server {
    listen        80;
    server_name   domain;
    location / {
        proxy_pass         http://localhost:2001;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header   Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   Connection keep-alive;
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

If you want to host two or more applications on one server
you need to configure nginx something like this:

cat /etc/nginx/conf.d/domain.conf

server {
    listen        80;
    server_name   domain;

    location /prod {
        rewrite            /prod(.*) $1 break;
        proxy_pass         http://localhost:5000;

        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header   Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   Connection keep-alive;
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

    location /dev {
        rewrite            /dev(.*) $1 break;
        proxy_pass         http://localhost:5001;

        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header   Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   Connection keep-alive;
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

The configuration of two .Net Core applications will look like:

cat /etc/systemd/system/example_prod.service

[Unit]
Description=Example production on .Net Core

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/example
ExecStart=/usr/bin/dotnet /var/www/example/example.dll
Restart=always
# Restart service after 10 seconds if the dotnet service crashes:
RestartSec=10
KillSignal=SIGINT
SyslogIdentifier=example-production
Environment=ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production
Environment=DOTNET_PRINT_TELEMETRY_MESSAGE=false
Environment=ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://localhost:5000

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

cat /etc/systemd/system/example_dev.service

[Unit]
Description=Example development on .Net Core

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/example
ExecStart=/usr/bin/dotnet /var/www/example/example.dll
Restart=always
# Restart service after 10 seconds if the dotnet service crashes:
RestartSec=10
KillSignal=SIGINT
SyslogIdentifier=example-development
Environment=ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Development
Environment=DOTNET_PRINT_TELEMETRY_MESSAGE=false
Environment=ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://localhost:5001

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

At the conclusion:
I launched two applications from one path: /var/www/example/example.dll
with different environments: Production and Development
on different ports: localhost:5000 and localhost:5001

And I confugured nginx to reverse proxy:

http://localhost:5000 => http://domain/prod/
http://localhost:5001 => http://domain/dev/