How to create a proxy in React/Webpack to call an external API

Question

I want to issue a GET request to an external API that I do not control. Because of the security on the API, my react app cannot directly make an ajax request to the endpoint. Therefore I'm trying to create a simple proxy as demonstrated here

My package.json file looks like this:

{
  "name": "my-stack",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "react": "^15.6.1",
    "react-dom": "^15.6.1",
    "react-router-dom": "^4.2.2",
    "react-scripts": "1.0.13"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "react-scripts start",
    "build": "react-scripts build",
    "test": "react-scripts test --env=jsdom",
    "eject": "react-scripts eject"
  },
  "proxy": {
    "https://gold-feed.com/paid/*": {
        "target": "https://gold-feed.com/paid",
        "changeOrigin": true
    }
  }
}

And then my ajax request looks like this:

const apiUrl = 'https://gold-feed.com/paid/<apiID>/all_metals_json_usd.php';

jQuery.ajax({
  method: 'GET',
  url: apiUrl,
  success: (item) => {
    this.props.addItem(item);
  }
});

But it doesn't appear to be doing anything. I'm still getting the following error:

No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'http://localhost:3000' is therefore not allowed access.

I essentially have the same issue as documented here where he is trying to create a proxy to access the Steam api.

And just a side note, I believe the create-react-app project that I'm using is piggybacking off of webpack.

Answer 1

You probably figured it out by now but for others here is what worked for me:

"proxy": {
    "/proxy": {
        "target": "https://mybackend.com",
        "pathRewrite": {
                "^/proxy" : ""
        },
        "changeOrigin": true
    }
}

so myreact.com/proxy/my/path is redirected to mybackend.com/my/path

I think the error in your case is that you put the destination as a key for your proxy instead of path on your react server.

Answer 2

For my case my api was deployed on AWS, I found that setting

"changeOrigin": true

was necessary (chrome & edge worked, firefox (62.0.3) complained "Invalid CORS request").

In the documentation of webpack http proxy they say this option: (https://github.com/chimurai/http-proxy-middleware)

Tip: Set the option changeOrigin to true for name-based virtual hosted sites.

notes:

• running the api locally on same machine didn't require that for fire fox.
• firefox adds header "origin" which when I removed and resent the request worked.
• adding "changeOrigin" doesn't have side effects so I will be doing it from now on.

I'm not sure if it's a bug in firefox or what, anyway my final configuration was:

"proxy": {
  "/api": {
    "target": "<put ip address>",
    "changeOrigin" : true
  }
}

you should replace /api with the path of your api or rewrite the path as the answer above.