Using Node.js to redirect and proxy normal HTTP+WebSocket traffics based on hostnames

Usually I used to use a single server to host several developing or experimental projects. Thus I need a quick solution to forward different request to these services. I had tried to use nginx before. But now I have a easier way to do so.

  1. require modules

  2. config proxy(forward) and redirect mappings (hostname based)

    var proxyOptions = {
      router: {
        "api.testAppX.com"     : 'localhost:2041',
        "dev.api.testAppX.com" : 'localhost:2042',
        "www.testAppY.com"     : 'localhost:10520',
        "test.oldApps.com"     : 'localhost:10520',
        'bc.ryanwu.co'         : 'localhost:8888'
      }
    },
      redirectOptions = {
        'olddomain.com'      : 'http://newdomain.com/',
        'www.olddomain.com'  : 'http://newdomain.com/',
        'blog.olddomain.com' : 'http://newdomain.com/blog/'
      };

  3. Create an instance of node-http-proxy’s RoutingProxy

    var proxy = new httpProxy.RoutingProxy(proxyOptions);

  4. Proxy normal HTTP requests

    var server = http.createServer(function(req, res) {
        var oriHost = req.headers.host,
            //remove port number from original host
            host = oriHost.indexOf(":") ? oriHost.split(':')[0] : oriHost;

      //Check matches of redirect hostnames
      if(_.has(redirectOptions, host)) {
        res.writeHead(301, { //You can use 301, 302 or whatever status code
          'Location': redirectOptions[host],
          'Expires': (new Date()).toGMTString()
        });
        res.end();
      } else {
        //Routing proxy will handle the rest of requests
        proxy.proxyRequest(req, res);
      }
    });

  5. Proxy websocket requests and listen the main service on specific port

    server.on('upgrade', function(req, socket, head) {
      proxy.proxyWebSocketRequest(req, socket, head);
    });

    server.listen(80);

Its very convenient and then I can use a simple forever service to manage this service.