Nginx reverse proxy to cakephp 5 in subfolder on docker running apache

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1

I am trying to direct a domain (*.domain.com) to a subdirectory in /var/www/html on a docker container running Apache2. I have my redirect on the nginx on the VPS working fine, the only issue is that links generated by CakePHP include the subdirectory in them, which it is not supposed to (the links do not work this way as they infinite loop). Even my static files are loading.

When I try to fiddle with the fullBaseUrl setting in app.php, the first change I make creates 404 errors with all my static files, even once I change everything back to the original settings and clear the cache.

Does anyone know how to set this up properly? Thanks!

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2

Excuse some necromancy, but I was having the same problem and fixed it more or less, though maybe there is a better solution.

I am experimenting with two docker containers running Nginx. The first acts as a gate and listens to my domain. HTTP is exposed on port 8080. The second container runs a CakePHP app (version 4.x for me), exposed on port 8081 for testing and on the same network as the gate.
Now I would like to access example.local:8080/my_app and see my CakePHP app, through a reverse proxy.

For the second container I have this conf.d/default.conf:

server {
    listen 80 default_server;

    server_name _;

    # Nginx root must point to application webroot:
    root /var/www/html/webroot;
    index index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }
    
    location ~ \.htaccess {
            deny all;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri =404;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass uptime-php:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

This simply offers the Cake application. Vising the debug port localhost:8081 now shows the application working.

Now for the gate I have the following entry in my conf.d/default.conf:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.local www.example.local;

    location /my_app {
        rewrite                     /my_app/(.*) /$1 break;
        proxy_pass                  http://my_app-web/;
        proxy_redirect              http://$host/ /my_app/;
        proxy_set_header            Host $host;
    }
}

(Note that my_app is the container name, and internal domain name, of the CakePHP container.)
This sets up the reverse proxy under a subdirectory.

(Note that I use a local DNS entry to point example.local to 127.0.0.1.)
Visiting example.local:8080/my_app now kind of works, but all CSS and JS are missing and all redirects are wrong. CSS etc. are loaded as example.local:8080/css/* (missing subfolder) and redirects are done to example.local/my_app/* (wrong port). This might make sense, after the rewrite the app containers receives a different URL.

I fixed this (more or less) by adding these config entries, overriding some automatic detection:

// app_local.php

    // ...
    'App' => [
        'base' => '/my_app',
        'webroot' => '/var/www/html',
        'fullBaseUrl' => 'http://example.local:8080',
    ],
    // ...

Now example.local:8080/my_app works in full!
But localhost:8081 doesn’t work any more (because the URL and base don’t match).

My question: can we fix by improving our rewrite / reverse proxy settings instead, such that the CakePHP URL detection is correct?