Set Up HTTPS with Nginx and Docker

Welcome back to my dev notes!

I ran into this problem while setting up HTTPS with Nginx and Docker, and I realized I had forgotten the exact steps. I decided to write them down so I can refer to them later, and hopefully they will help you too.

I have a Docker container running a PHP application served by Nginx, and I wanted to set up HTTPS with a self-signed certificate because I need to test some OAuth flows.

Follow these steps to set up HTTPS with Nginx and Docker:

Create a self-signed certificate

1openssl x509 -outform pem -in localhost.crt -out localhost.pem

Edit the Nginx configuration

Pay attention to the paths for ssl_certificate and ssl_certificate_key.

1server {
2  listen 443 ssl;
3  server_name localhost;
4  ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/localhost.crt;
5  ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/localhost.key;
6  ...
7}

Restart Docker

If you want to avoid browser warnings, you can also add the certificate to your system keychain. On macOS, you can do it like this:

1sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot \
2  -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain localhost.crt

Enjoy!