WordPress redirecting to siteurl when accessed via webpack-dev-server proxy

Question

This question has historical value, so I'm updating it a bit. It's the top result for "webpack-dev-server wordpress redirect" in Google. While the accepted solution worked for Webpack 2, it might not work anymore. If it doesn't you can refer to my wordpress-theme-base repository, which is built using Webpack 4.

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First of all, this is related to Wordpress redirecting to localhost instead of virtual host when being proxied by Webpack Dev Server. I'm facing a similar problem, but the only solution didn't really do anything for me.

I'm running WordPress 4.7 inside a Vagrant development machine, and it responds to http://wordpress.local just like it should. Previously I've used Browsersync to watch my files and trigger a refresh, and this works as expected: browser-sync start --proxy 'https://wordpress.local' --files '**/dist/js/*.js, **/*.css, **/*.php'.

However, with webpack-dev-server I'm unable to replicate the behaviour. This is what should happen.

1. Server starts in https://localhost:9000
2. Navigating to https://localhost:9000 should present me with the same page as navigating to https://wordpress.local, without any redirections. Site works as it was https://wordpress.local, but the URL is https://localhost:9000.
3. Changes happen, page gets reloaded.

Instead, this happens.

• Navigating to https://localhost:9000 redirects me to https://wordpress.local with a 301. I've disabled canonical redirects with remove_filter('template_redirect', 'redirect_canonical'); but doesn't help.
• Navigating to https://localhost:9000/404 presents me a 404 page that is provided by my theme. No redirect happens.
• Navigating to https://localhost:9000/existing-page/ redirects me to https://localhost/existing-page/ with a 301.

What on earth is going on? I've narrowed the problem to WordPress, as proxying a non-WordPress directory works as expected:

Direct, contents of $_SERVER: https://gist.github.com/k1sul1/0aff7ba905464ca7852f2ce00b459922

Proxied, contents of $_SERVER: https://gist.github.com/k1sul1/f090aa103dc3a3cb0b339269560ac19d

I've tried playing around with headers and such, without luck. Here's what my webpack.config.js looks like:

const path = require('path');
const url = 'https://wordpress.local/';
const themeDir = '/wp-content/themes/themename/';

module.exports = {
  entry: './src/js/index.js',
  output: {
    filename: 'bundle.js',
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
    publicPath: url
  },
  devServer: {
    historyApiFallback: true,
    compress: true,
    port: 9000,
    https: url.indexOf('https') > -1 ? true : false,
    publicPath: themeDir,
    proxy: {
      '*': {
        'target': url,
        'secure': false
      },
      // '/': { // This doesn't do much. 
        // target: url,
        // secure: false
      // }
    },
  }
};

TL;DR: How do I replicate Browsersync behaviour with webpack-dev-server without WordPress going crazy?

Answer 1

I did eventually solve this. The magic lines that go into the proxy config are changeOrigin: true and autoRewrite: true. Those options go into http-proxy-middleware.

Any changes to WordPress domain or config are unnecessary.

const path = require('path');
const pjson = require(path.join(__dirname, '..', 'package.json'));

const isWin = /^win/.test(process.platform);
const isMac = /^darwin/.test(process.platform);
const isHTTPS = pjson.wptheme.proxyURL.includes('https');

exports.devServer = ({ host, port } = {}) => {
  const options = {
    host: host || process.env.HOST || 'localhost', 
    port: port || process.env.PORT || 8080,
  };
  options.publicPath = (isHTTPS ? 'https' : 'http') + '://' + options.host + ':' + options.port + pjson.wptheme.publicPath;

  return {
    devServer: {
      watchOptions: {
        poll: isWin || isMac ? undefined : 1000,
        aggregateTimeout: 300,
      },

      https: isHTTPS,
      stats: 'errors-only',
      host: options.host,
      port: options.port,
      overlay: {
        errors: true,
        warnings: false,
      },

      open: true,
      hotOnly: true,

      proxy: {
        '/': {
          target: pjson.wptheme.proxyURL,
          secure: false,
          changeOrigin: true,
          autoRewrite: true,
          headers: {
            'X-ProxiedBy-Webpack': true,
          },
        },
      },

      publicPath: options.publicPath,
    },
  };
};

The values referenced from package.json look like this:

"wptheme": {
  "publicPath": "/wp-content/themes/themefolder/dist/",
  "proxyURL": "https://wordpress.local"
},

Answer 2

It's probably the redirect settings of your Wordpress site. If you access your site through http://localhost:9000 then that should be the domain Wordpress is aware of.

Set it in Wordpress' admin or directly in the database:

UPDATE `wp_options` SET `option_value` = "http://localhost:9000" WHERE `option_name` = "siteurl" OR `option_name` = "home";