Redirect port 443 to 8080?

birgersp

9/24/23, 2:21 PM

(note: I intentionally wrote "httpz" instead of "https" because I got an error message when trying to post the question)

I have a web server (docker container) running on 8080. I want people going to httpz://mydomain.com to access it. I changed the port configuration for the container (docker compose) to map 443 to 8080, and that works. But I would rather route traffic going to my server from port 443 to 8080. That way, I could start the docker container without root privileges.

How (specifically) do I configure the Ubuntu 20.40 server so that people accessing httpz://mydomain.com:443 gets routed to httpz://mydomain:8080?

I tried this command (taken from a guide I found online, but changed port 80 to 443):

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080

But it doesn't work. Traffic to 443 is not routed to 8080.

0 + 0

ubuntu

ssl

https

iptables

Nikita Kipriyanov

9/24/23, 4:34 PM

Are you sure the service on port 8080 really is HTTPS and not plain HTTP?

djdomi

9/24/23, 5:43 PM

I think you Want to use a reverse proxy instead of iptables

birgersp

9/25/23, 5:50 AM

@NikitaKipriyanov Yes, the service on port 8080 is really HTTPS. As mentioned, if I configure docker to route 443 to 8080 it works.

birgersp

9/25/23, 5:51 AM

@djdomi yes, maybe. Whatever is least hassle to configure, and easy to remove (restore) is fine.

Nikita Kipriyanov

9/25/23, 6:11 AM

Then the most correct way to do this is to set up ports in docker. Docker has [instructions](https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/rootless/#exposing-privileged-ports) how to do this under unprivileged user.