Hi, We’re looking for a solution where we can register an IP (Droplet) and then route to this IP based on URL segment. The process would be like this: Droplet is created through the API and registers itself with the routing-service based on an arbitrary ID. The user access the Droplet through an address like https://my.service.org/ <arbitrary_id> which routes to the correct Droplet based on the arbitrary_id. When destroyed the Droplet unregisters with the service. Is this possible through something like a reverse proxy? Thanks!

DigitalOcean

- Community
- DigitalOcean
- Community
- DigitalOcean

Question

How to register droplets and route to them based on URL segment

Posted on May 15, 2021

DigitalOcean Droplets

Networking

By Padelgo TV

Developers

Hi,

We’re looking for a solution where we can register an IP (Droplet) and then route to this IP based on URL segment.

The process would be like this:

Droplet is created through the API and registers itself with the routing-service based on an arbitrary ID.
The user access the Droplet through an address like https://my.service.org/<arbitrary_id> which routes to the correct Droplet based on the arbitrary_id.
When destroyed the Droplet unregisters with the service.

Is this possible through something like a reverse proxy?

Thanks!

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.

Bobby Iliev

May 20, 2021

Accepted Answer

Hi there,

Yes this would be doable with a reverse proxy setup with Nginx. The Nginx server block configuration will look something like this:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name your_domain.com www.your_domain.com;

    location /arbitrary_id_1 {
        proxy_pass http://droplet_ip;
        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;
    }

    location /arbitrary_id_2 {
        proxy_pass http://droplet_ip;
        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;
    }
}

For more information I could suggest this tutorial here:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-nginx-as-a-web-server-and-reverse-proxy-for-apache-on-one-ubuntu-18-04-server

Hope that this helps! Regards, Bobby