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Setup a HTTP redirection in Rahti

It is very simple to setup a HTTP redirection in Rahti using a web server like nginx. We can redirect to basically any URL we want with very complex logics. For this tutorial, we will keep it simple and simply redirect to a different host, but keeping the path of the URL.

Procedure

  1. Deploy an NGINX Image. It is recommended to use bitnami/nginx

    bitnami/nginx

  2. Add a Route with the URL that you want to redirect. If you visit the URL, you should see the "nginx welcome page"

    route

  3. Add a ConfigMap with a server redirection block. Go to Workloads > ConfigMaps, click in Create ConfigMap. The Name will be later used when mounting the ConfigMap. The Key will be the name of the file, and the Value the content of the file. 

    #default.conf
server {
        listen *:8080;
        server_name test.com;
        return 301 $scheme://test2.com$request_uri;
}

    In this example, test.com is the original URL, and test2.com is the one that the user will be redirected to.

  4. Mount the Configmap to the nginx deployment as a volume. Go to deployment and add following code in the YAML file.

spec:
     containers:
       volumeMounts:
       - mountPath: /opt/bitnami/nginx/conf/server_blocks
         name: nginx-conf
       volumes:
       - configMap:
           defaultMode: 420
           name: nginx-config
         name: nginx-conf

In this example, nginx-conf is the **name** of configMap, nginx-config is the **key** and the ConfigMap has to be mounted in `/opt/bitnami/nginx/conf/server_blocks/`, other images may store the nginx configuration in different folders.

Add more host domains

If you need to redirect more than one host domain, you can use the same nginx, you just need to (1) add a new Route with the new host, and (2) add a new server block to the existing ConfigMap. In order for nginx to pick up the new configuration, you can delete the Pod or enter in the pod's terminal and run nginx -s reload.

Conclusion and more

Nginx is a powerful web server. You can use it also as a HTTP proxy and load balancer. For more information, please check the documentation at https://nginx.org/en/docs/.