How to add locations to "default site"?

[eigenphase]

I really don't one sub domain for each and every service.

Hence I'd like to either create a default site and add multiple locations or use the builtin default site for that. Unfortunately the latter only works for http and there is no option to add locations.

As a workaround, I created a dummy host. This dummy host is really only meant to service multiple "custom location" entries. But the main page should still be some simple, static page. Since I am forced to enter something in scheme / host forward IP, I used htttp://127.0.0.1:80. My hope was that then, I would see the "default site" that I have configured in the settings.

However, instead I am getting:

400 Bad Request
Request Header Or Cookie Too Large
openresty

Is there any good way to achieve this?

(I'm afraid not, in which was I would convert this into a bug report/feature request)

[tigran-sargsyan-w]

I think 127.0.0.1:80 is creating a proxy loop here.

Remember that from inside the NPM container:

127.0.0.1

means the NPM container itself.

So your dummy Proxy Host receives something like:

Host: dummy.example.com

and proxies it to:

127.0.0.1:80

That request enters Nginx again with the same Host header, matches the same Proxy Host again, and gets proxied back to itself again.

Conceptually:

client
  -> dummy host
      -> 127.0.0.1:80
          -> dummy host
              -> 127.0.0.1:80
                  -> ...

That also explains:

400 Request Header Or Cookie Too Large

because the request repeatedly passes through the proxy chain and headers can grow until Nginx rejects it.

The built-in NPM "default site" isn't an upstream application that you can reach by proxying to 127.0.0.1:80; it is another Nginx server/default-server configuration.

For what you're trying to build, I would use a tiny separate container for the static root page, for example another Nginx container:

dashboard-root:80

Put it on the same Docker network as NPM, and configure the dummy Proxy Host to forward its normal / traffic to:

http://dashboard-root:80

Then keep your Custom Locations forwarding to their individual services.

That gives you:

/
    -> static container

/app1/
    -> service 1

/app2/
    -> service 2

without proxying NPM back into itself.