Setting up NGINX inside Docker to proxy host applications

Fortunately for us, Docker is built with inherent support for container-to-host connections. When setting up NGINX inside a container, a special host.docker.internal hostname is used to target the host machine.

Here’s a sample NGINX proxy configuration for interfacing with a web application hosted on the server:

server {
    listen 80;
    location /hostapp {
        proxy_pass http://host.docker.internal:4000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

To ensure NGINX can communicate with...