Build Your First Reverse Proxy

OVER THE PAST FEW ISSUES, we’ve shown you how to build a few practical self-hosted servers: NextCloud for cloud storage, Bitwarden for password management, and Booksonic for audiobook collections, to name but three. While it’s possible to configure all three for remote access over the Internet, it’s an awkward process ensuring each individual server has access to a secure, encrypted Internet connection.

One of the many uses for a reverse proxy is to act as an intermediary between the Internet and any self-hosted servers you want to access remotely. Simply configure your router to forward all relevant ports to your reverse proxy, and it does the rest. Why do this? Because your reverse proxy secures all incoming and outgoing connections, making it easy to obtain and manage a free SSL certificate that encrypts traffic from all your self-hosted servers from one convenient location.

In this first of a two-part series, we’re going to set up the nginx reverse proxy with a free, self-renewing Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate to give you secure access to your NextCloud server from anywhere in the world. Next