Caddy Proxying

As Strapi does not handle SSL directly and hosting a Node.js service on the "edge" network is not a secure solution it is recommended that you use some sort of proxy application such as Nginx, Apache, HAProxy, Traefik, or others. Below you will find some sample configurations for Caddy, naturally these configs may not suit all environments and you will likely need to adjust them to fit your needs.

Caddy has some very easy to use options relating to Let's encrypt and automated SSL certificate issuing/renewing, while it is certainly the "newer" web server market, it is quickly becoming a great "non-technical" user application for proxying. Please do note that Caddy is still very much in development and as such is evolving often, this guide is based on Caddy v2.0.0.

Configuration

The below configuration is based on "Caddy File" type, this is a single file configuration that Caddy will use to run the web server. There are multiple other options such as the Caddy REST API that this guide will not cover, you should review the Caddy documentation (opens new window) for further information on alternatives. You can also visit the Caddy Community (opens new window) to speak with others relating to configuration questions.

Strapi server

In order to take full advantage of a proxied Strapi application, Strapi should be configured so it's aware of the upstream proxy. Like with the below configurations there are 3 matching examples. Additional information can be found in the server configuration and admin configuration documentations.

✏️ NOTE

These examples use the default API Prefix of /api. This can be changed without the need to directly modify the Nginx configuration (see the API prefix documentation).

✋ CAUTION

If the url key is changed in the ./config/admin.js or ./config/server.js files, the admin panel needs to be rebuilt with yarn build or npm run build.

Subdomain Strapi configuration

---

• Example domain: api.example.com
• Example admin: api.example.com/admin
• Example API: api.example.com/api
• Example uploaded files (local provider): api.example.com/uploads

Subfolder unified Strapi configuration

---

• Example domain: example.com/test
• Example admin: example.com/test/admin
• Example API: example.com/test/api
• Example uploaded Files (local provider): example.com/test/uploads

Subfolder split Strapi configuration

---

• Example domain: example.com
• Example admin: example.com/dashboard
• Example API: example.com/api
• Example uploaded files (local provider): example.com/uploads

Caddy file

The Caddyfile is a convenient Caddy configuration format for humans. It is most people's favorite way to use Caddy because it is easy to write, easy to understand, and expressive enough for most use cases.

In the below examples you will need to replace your domain, and should you wish to use SSL you will need to tweak these Caddy file configs to suit your needs, SSL is not covered in this guide and you should review the Caddy documentation.

Below are 3 example Caddy configurations:

• Subdomain-based such as api.example.com
• Subfolder-based with both the API and Admin on the same subfolder (e.g. example.com/test/api and example.com/test/admin)
• Subfolder-based with split API and admin panel (e.g. example.com/api and example.com/dashboard)

Subdomain

This configuration is using a subdomain dedicated to Strapi only. It will bind to port 80 HTTP and proxies all requests (both API and admin) to the Strapi server running locally on the address specified. If you have configured Caddy properly to handle automated SSL, you can remove the http:// and Caddy will automatically convert all HTTP to HTTPS traffic.

---

• Example domain: api.example.com
• Example admin panel: api.example.com/admin
• Example API: api.example.com/api
• Example uploaded Files (local provider): api.example.com/uploads

# path: /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

http://api.example.com {
  reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:1337
}

Subfolder unified

This configuration is using a subfolder dedicated to Strapi only. It will bind to port 80 HTTP and hosts the front-end files on /var/www like a normal web server, but proxies all Strapi requests on the example.com/test sub-path.

✏️ NOTE

This example configuration is not focused on the front end hosting and should be adjusted to your front-end software requirements.

---

• Example domain: example.com/test
• Example admin panel: example.com/test/admin
• Example API: example.com/test/api
• Example uploaded Files (local provider): example.com/test/uploads

# path: /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

http://example.com {
  root * /var/www
  file_server
  route /test* {
    uri strip_prefix /test
    reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:1337
  }
}

Subfolder split

This configuration is using 2 subfolders dedicated to Strapi. It will bind to port 80 HTTP and hosts the front end files on /var/www like a normal web server, but proxies all Strapi API requests on the example.com/api subpath and all admin requests on the example.com/dashboard subpath.

Alternatively, for the admin panel, you can replace the proxy instead with serving the admin build folder directly from Caddy, such centralizing the admin but load balancing the backend APIs. The example for this is not shown, but it would likely be something you would build into your CI/CD platform.

✋ CAUTION

This example configuration is not focused on the front end hosting and should be adjusted to your front-end software requirements.

---

• Example domain: example.com
• Example admin: example.com/dashboard
• Example API: example.com/api
• Example uploaded Files (local provider): example.com/uploads

Path — /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

# path: /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

http://example.com {
  reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:1337
}

Redirecting landing page to admin panel

If you do not wish to have the default landing page mounted on / you can create a custom ./public/index.html using the sample code below to automatically redirect to your admin panel.

✋ CAUTION

This sample configuration expects that the admin panel is accessible on /admin. If you used one of the above configurations to change this to /dashboard you will also need to adjust this sample configuration.

Path — ./public/index.html

<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL='/admin'" />
  </head>
</html>