How to redirect on the same port from http to https with nginx reverse proxy - ssl

Question

I use reverse proxy with Nginx and I want to force the request into HTTPS, so if a user wants to access the url with http, he will be automatically redirected to HTTPS.
I'm also using a non-standard port.
Here is my nginx reverse proxy config:
server {
listen 8001 ssl;
ssl_certificate /home/xxx/server.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /home/xxx/server.key;
location / {
proxy_pass https://localhost:8000;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host:$server_port;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
}
}
I've tried many things and also read posts about it, including this serverfault question, but nothing has worked so far.

Answer 1

Found something that is working well :
server {
listen 8001 ssl;
ssl_certificate /home/xxx/server.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /home/xxx/server.key;
error_page 497 301 =307 https://$host:$server_port$request_uri;
location /{
proxy_pass http://localhost:8000;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host:$server_port;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
}
}

Answer 2

Are you sure your solution is working? It is listening for 8001 ssl. Will it accept http request?
I do it this way:
server {
listen 80;
server_name yourhostname.com;
location / {
rewrite ^(.*) https://yourhostname.com:8001$1 permanent;
}
}
Then goes your config:
server {
listen 8001 ssl;
ssl_certificate /home/xxx/server.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /home/xxx/server.key;
location / {
proxy_pass https://localhost:8000;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host:$server_port;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
}
}

Answer 3

This worked for me:
server {
listen 80;
server_name localhost;
...
if ($http_x_forwarded_proto = "http") {
return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}
location / {
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
}
...
}

Answer 4

You can
use $server_name to avoid hard coding your domain name again (DRY),
use return 301 for a bit easier reading (a web dev should know this http status code)
Note: I put 443 for https server. You may listen to 8001 if you really want that.
server {
listen 80;
server_name your_hostname.com;
return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}
...
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name your_hostname.com
...
}

Answer 5

This is my approach, which I think is quite clean and allows you to add further locations if needed. I add a test on the $http_x_forwarded_proto property which if true forces all HTTP traffic to HTTPS on a NGINX Reverse Proxy setup
upstream flask_bootstrap {
server flask-bootstrap:8000;
}
server {
# SSL traffic terminates on the Load Balancer so we only need to listen on port 80
listen 80;
# Set reverse proxy
location / {
proxy_pass http://flask_bootstrap;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_redirect http://localhost/;
# Permanently redirect any http calls to https
if ($http_x_forwarded_proto != 'https') {
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
}
}