http-proxy-middleware

   

Node.js proxying made simple. Configure proxy middleware with ease for connect, express, browser-sync and [many more](#compatible-servers).

Powered by the popular Nodejitsu [http-proxy](https://github.com/nodejitsu/node-http-proxy). 

⚠️ Note <!-- omit in toc -->

This page is showing documentation for version v2.x.x (release notes)

If you're looking for v0.x documentation. Go to: https://github.com/chimurai/http-proxy-middleware/tree/v0.21.0#readme

TL;DR <!-- omit in toc -->

Proxy /api requests to http://www.example.org

javascript
// javascript

const express = require('express');
const { createProxyMiddleware } = require('http-proxy-middleware');

const app = express();

app.use('/api', createProxyMiddleware({ target: 'http://www.example.org', changeOrigin: true }));
app.listen(3000);

// http://localhost:3000/api/foo/bar -> http://www.example.org/api/foo/bar

typescript
// typescript

import * as express from 'express';
import { createProxyMiddleware, Filter, Options, RequestHandler } from 'http-proxy-middleware';

const app = express();

app.use('/api', createProxyMiddleware({ target: 'http://www.example.org', changeOrigin: true }));
app.listen(3000);

// http://localhost:3000/api/foo/bar -> http://www.example.org/api/foo/bar

_All_ http-proxy options can be used, along with some extra http-proxy-middleware [options](#options).

💡 Tip: Set the option changeOrigin to true for name-based virtual hosted sites.

Table of Contents <!-- omit in toc -->

• [Install](#install)
• [Core concept](#core-concept)
• [Example](#example)
• [Context matching](#context-matching)
• [Options](#options)
  • [http-proxy-middleware options](#http-proxy-middleware-options)
  • [http-proxy events](#http-proxy-events)
  • [http-proxy options](#http-proxy-options)
• [Shorthand](#shorthand)
  • [app.use(path, proxy)](#appusepath-proxy)
• [WebSocket](#websocket)
  • [External WebSocket upgrade](#external-websocket-upgrade)
• [Intercept and manipulate requests](#intercept-and-manipulate-requests)
• [Intercept and manipulate responses](#intercept-and-manipulate-responses)
• [Working examples](#working-examples)
• [Recipes](#recipes)
• [Compatible servers](#compatible-servers)
• [Tests](#tests)
• [Changelog](#changelog)
• [License](#license)

Install

bash
$ npm install --save-dev http-proxy-middleware

Core concept

Proxy middleware configuration.

createProxyMiddleware([context,] config)

javascript
const { createProxyMiddleware } = require('http-proxy-middleware');

const apiProxy = createProxyMiddleware('/api', { target: 'http://www.example.org' });
//                                    \____/   \_____________________________/
//                                      |                    |
//                                    context             options

// 'apiProxy' is now ready to be used as middleware in a server.

• context: Determine which requests should be proxied to the target host. (more on [context matching](#context-matching))
• options.target: target host to proxy to. _(protocol + host)_

(full list of [http-proxy-middleware configuration options](#options))

createProxyMiddleware(uri [, config])

javascript
// shorthand syntax for the example above:
const apiProxy = createProxyMiddleware('http://www.example.org/api');

More about the [shorthand configuration](#shorthand).

Example

An example with express server.

javascript
// include dependencies
const express = require('express');
const { createProxyMiddleware } = require('http-proxy-middleware');

// proxy middleware options
/** @type {import('http-proxy-middleware/dist/types').Options} */
const options = {
  target: 'http://www.example.org', // target host
  changeOrigin: true, // needed for virtual hosted sites
  ws: true, // proxy websockets
  pathRewrite: {
    '^/api/old-path': '/api/new-path', // rewrite path
    '^/api/remove/path': '/path', // remove base path
  },
  router: {
    // when request.headers.host == 'dev.localhost:3000',
    // override target 'http://www.example.org' to 'http://localhost:8000'
    'dev.localhost:3000': 'http://localhost:8000',
  },
};

// create the proxy (without context)
const exampleProxy = createProxyMiddleware(options);

// mount `exampleProxy` in web server
const app = express();
app.use('/api', exampleProxy);
app.listen(3000);

Context matching

Providing an alternative way to decide which requests should be proxied; In case you are not able to use the server's [path parameter](http://expressjs.com/en/4x/api.html#app.use) to mount the proxy or when you need more flexibility.

[RFC 3986 path](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-3.3) is used for context matching.

ascii
         foo://example.com:8042/over/there?name=ferret#nose
         \_/   \______________/\_________/ \_________/ \__/
          |           |            |            |        |
       scheme     authority       path        query   fragment

• path matching
  • createProxyMiddleware({...}) - matches any path, all requests will be proxied.
  • createProxyMiddleware('/', {...}) - matches any path, all requests will be proxied.
  • createProxyMiddleware('/api', {...}) - matches paths starting with /api

• multiple path matching
  • createProxyMiddleware(['/api', '/ajax', '/someotherpath'], {...})

• wildcard path matching
  
  For fine-grained control you can use wildcard matching. Glob pattern matching is done by _micromatch_. Visit micromatch or glob for more globbing examples.
  • createProxyMiddleware('**', {...}) matches any path, all requests will be proxied.
  • createProxyMiddleware('**/*.html', {...}) matches any path which ends with .html
  • createProxyMiddleware('/*.html', {...}) matches paths directly under path-absolute
  • createProxyMiddleware('/api/**/*.html', {...}) matches requests ending with .html in the path of /api
  • createProxyMiddleware(['/api/**', '/ajax/**'], {...}) combine multiple patterns
  • createProxyMiddleware(['/api/**', '!**/bad.json'], {...}) exclusion
    
    Note: In multiple path matching, you cannot use string paths and wildcard paths together.

• custom matching
  
  For full control you can provide a custom function to determine which requests should be proxied or not.
  
  `javascript /**
  • @return {Boolean} */ const filter = function (pathname, req) { return pathname.match('^/api') && req.method === 'GET'; };
    
    const apiProxy = createProxyMiddleware(filter, { target: 'http://www.example.org', }); `

Options

http-proxy-middleware options

• option.pathRewrite: object/function, rewrite target's url path. Object-keys will be used as _RegExp_ to match paths.
  
  `javascript // rewrite path pathRewrite: {'^/old/api' : '/new/api'}
  
  // remove path pathRewrite: {'^/remove/api' : ''}
  
  // add base path pathRewrite: {'^/' : '/basepath/'}
  
  // custom rewriting pathRewrite: function (path, req) { return path.replace('/api', '/base/api') }
  
  // custom rewriting, returning Promise pathRewrite: async function (path, req) { const should_add_something = await httpRequestToDecideSomething(path); if (should_add_something) path += "something"; return path; } `

• option.router: object/function, re-target option.target for specific requests.
  
  `javascript Use host and/or path to match requests. First match will be used. The order of the configuration matters. router: { 'integration.localhost:3000' : 'http://localhost:8001', host only 'staging.localhost:3000' : 'http://localhost:8002', host only 'localhost:3000/api' : 'http://localhost:8003', host + path '/rest' : 'http://localhost:8004' path only }
  
  // Custom router function (string target) router: function(req) { return 'http://localhost:8004'; }
  
  Custom router function (target object) router: function(req) { return { protocol: 'https:', The : is required host: 'localhost', port: 8004 }; }
  
  // Asynchronous router function which returns promise router: async function(req) { const url = await doSomeIO(); return url; } `

• option.logLevel: string, ['debug', 'info', 'warn', 'error', 'silent']. Default: 'info'

• option.logProvider: function, modify or replace log provider. Default: console.
  
  `javascript simple replace function logProvider(provider) { replace the default console log provider. return require('winston'); } `
  
  `javascript // verbose replacement function logProvider(provider) { const logger = new (require('winston').Logger)();
  
  const myCustomProvider = { log: logger.log, debug: logger.debug, info: logger.info, warn: logger.warn, error: logger.error, }; return myCustomProvider; } `

http-proxy events

Subscribe to http-proxy events:

• option.onError: function, subscribe to http-proxy's error event for custom error handling.
  
  `javascript function onError(err, req, res, target) { res.writeHead(500, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain', }); res.end('Something went wrong. And we are reporting a custom error message.'); } `

• option.onProxyRes: function, subscribe to http-proxy's proxyRes event.
  
  `javascript function onProxyRes(proxyRes, req, res) { proxyRes.headers['x-added'] = 'foobar'; add new header to response delete proxyRes.headers['x-removed']; remove header from response } `

• option.onProxyReq: function, subscribe to http-proxy's proxyReq event.
  
  `javascript function onProxyReq(proxyReq, req, res) { add custom header to request proxyReq.setHeader('x-added', 'foobar'); or log the req } `

• option.onProxyReqWs: function, subscribe to http-proxy's proxyReqWs event.
  
  `javascript function onProxyReqWs(proxyReq, req, socket, options, head) { // add custom header proxyReq.setHeader('X-Special-Proxy-Header', 'foobar'); } `

• option.onOpen: function, subscribe to http-proxy's open event.
  
  `javascript function onOpen(proxySocket) { // listen for messages coming FROM the target here proxySocket.on('data', hybridParseAndLogMessage); } `

• option.onClose: function, subscribe to http-proxy's close event.
  
  `javascript function onClose(res, socket, head) { // view disconnected websocket connections console.log('Client disconnected'); } `

http-proxy options

The following options are provided by the underlying http-proxy library.

• option.target: url string to be parsed with the url module
• option.forward: url string to be parsed with the url module
• option.agent: object to be passed to http(s).request (see Node's https agent and http agent objects)
• option.ssl: object to be passed to https.createServer()
• option.ws: true/false: if you want to proxy websockets
• option.xfwd: true/false, adds x-forward headers
• option.secure: true/false, if you want to verify the SSL Certs
• option.toProxy: true/false, passes the absolute URL as the path (useful for proxying to proxies)
• option.prependPath: true/false, Default: true - specify whether you want to prepend the target's path to the proxy path
• option.ignorePath: true/false, Default: false - specify whether you want to ignore the proxy path of the incoming request (note: you will have to append / manually if required).
• option.localAddress : Local interface string to bind for outgoing connections
• option.changeOrigin: true/false, Default: false - changes the origin of the host header to the target URL
• option.preserveHeaderKeyCase: true/false, Default: false - specify whether you want to keep letter case of response header key
• option.auth : Basic authentication i.e. 'user:password' to compute an Authorization header.
• option.hostRewrite: rewrites the location hostname on (301/302/307/308) redirects.
• option.autoRewrite: rewrites the location host/port on (301/302/307/308) redirects based on requested host/port. Default: false.
• option.protocolRewrite: rewrites the location protocol on (301/302/307/308) redirects to 'http' or 'https'. Default: null.
• option.cookieDomainRewrite: rewrites domain of set-cookie headers. Possible values:
  • false (default): disable cookie rewriting
  • String: new domain, for example cookieDomainRewrite: "new.domain". To remove the domain, use cookieDomainRewrite: "".
  • Object: mapping of domains to new domains, use "*" to match all domains. For example keep one domain unchanged, rewrite one domain and remove other domains: `json cookieDomainRewrite: { "unchanged.domain": "unchanged.domain", "old.domain": "new.domain", "*": "" } `
• option.cookiePathRewrite: rewrites path of set-cookie headers. Possible values:
  • false (default): disable cookie rewriting
  • String: new path, for example cookiePathRewrite: "/newPath/". To remove the path, use cookiePathRewrite: "". To set path to root use cookiePathRewrite: "/".
  • Object: mapping of paths to new paths, use "*" to match all paths. For example, to keep one path unchanged, rewrite one path and remove other paths: `json cookiePathRewrite: { "/unchanged.path/": "/unchanged.path/", "/old.path/": "/new.path/", "*": "" } `
• option.headers: object, adds request headers. (Example: {host:'www.example.org'})
• option.proxyTimeout: timeout (in millis) when proxy receives no response from target
• option.timeout: timeout (in millis) for incoming requests
• option.followRedirects: true/false, Default: false - specify whether you want to follow redirects
• option.selfHandleResponse true/false, if set to true, none of the webOutgoing passes are called and it's your responsibility to appropriately return the response by listening and acting on the proxyRes event
• option.buffer: stream of data to send as the request body. Maybe you have some middleware that consumes the request stream before proxying it on e.g. If you read the body of a request into a field called 'req.rawbody' you could restream this field in the buffer option:
  
  `javascript 'use strict';
  
  const streamify = require('stream-array'); const HttpProxy = require('http-proxy'); const proxy = new HttpProxy();
  
  module.exports = (req, res, next) => { proxy.web( req, res, { target: 'http://localhost:4003/', buffer: streamify(req.rawBody), }, next ); }; `

Shorthand

Use the shorthand syntax when verbose configuration is not needed. The context and option.target will be automatically configured when shorthand is used. Options can still be used if needed.

javascript
createProxyMiddleware('http://www.example.org:8000/api');
// createProxyMiddleware('/api', {target: 'http://www.example.org:8000'});

createProxyMiddleware('http://www.example.org:8000/api/books/*/**.json');
// createProxyMiddleware('/api/books/*/**.json', {target: 'http://www.example.org:8000'});

createProxyMiddleware('http://www.example.org:8000/api', { changeOrigin: true });
// createProxyMiddleware('/api', {target: 'http://www.example.org:8000', changeOrigin: true});

app.use(path, proxy)

If you want to use the server's app.use path parameter to match requests; Create and mount the proxy without the http-proxy-middleware context parameter:

javascript
app.use('/api', createProxyMiddleware({ target: 'http://www.example.org', changeOrigin: true }));

app.use documentation:

• express: http://expressjs.com/en/4x/api.html#app.use
• connect: https://github.com/senchalabs/connect#mount-middleware
• polka: https://github.com/lukeed/polka#usebase-fn

WebSocket

javascript
// verbose api
createProxyMiddleware('/', { target: 'http://echo.websocket.org', ws: true });

// shorthand
createProxyMiddleware('http://echo.websocket.org', { ws: true });

// shorter shorthand
createProxyMiddleware('ws://echo.websocket.org');

External WebSocket upgrade

In the previous WebSocket examples, http-proxy-middleware relies on a initial http request in order to listen to the http upgrade event. If you need to proxy WebSockets without the initial http request, you can subscribe to the server's http upgrade event manually.

javascript
const wsProxy = createProxyMiddleware('ws://echo.websocket.org', { changeOrigin: true });

const app = express();
app.use(wsProxy);

const server = app.listen(3000);
server.on('upgrade', wsProxy.upgrade); // <-- subscribe to http 'upgrade'

Intercept and manipulate requests

Intercept requests from downstream by defining onProxyReq in createProxyMiddleware.

Currently the only pre-provided request interceptor is fixRequestBody, which is used to fix proxied POST requests when bodyParser is applied before this middleware.

Example:

javascript
const { createProxyMiddleware, fixRequestBody } = require('http-proxy-middleware');

const proxy = createProxyMiddleware({
  /**
   * Fix bodyParser
   **/
  onProxyReq: fixRequestBody,
});

Intercept and manipulate responses

Intercept responses from upstream with responseInterceptor. (Make sure to set selfHandleResponse: true)

Responses which are compressed with brotli, gzip and deflate will be decompressed automatically. The response will be returned as buffer (docs) which you can manipulate.

With buffer, response manipulation is not limited to text responses (html/css/js, etc...); image manipulation will be possible too. (example)

Example:

javascript
const { createProxyMiddleware, responseInterceptor } = require('http-proxy-middleware');

const proxy = createProxyMiddleware({
  /**
   * IMPORTANT: avoid res.end being called automatically
   **/
  selfHandleResponse: true, // res.end() will be called internally by responseInterceptor()

  /**
   * Intercept response and replace 'Hello' with 'Goodbye'
   **/
  onProxyRes: responseInterceptor(async (responseBuffer, proxyRes, req, res) => {
    const response = responseBuffer.toString('utf8'); // convert buffer to string
    return response.replace('Hello', 'Goodbye'); // manipulate response and return the result
  }),
});

Check out interception recipes for more examples.

Working examples

View and play around with working examples.

• Browser-Sync (example source)
• express (example source)
• connect (example source)
• WebSocket (example source)
• Response Manipulation (example source)

Recipes

View the recipes for common use cases.

Compatible servers

http-proxy-middleware is compatible with the following servers:

• connect
• express
• fastify
• browser-sync
• lite-server
• polka
• grunt-contrib-connect
• grunt-browser-sync
• gulp-connect
• gulp-webserver

Sample implementations can be found in the server recipes.

Tests

Run the test suite:

bash
# install dependencies
$ yarn

# linting
$ yarn lint
$ yarn lint:fix

# building (compile typescript to js)
$ yarn build

# unit tests
$ yarn test

# code coverage
$ yarn cover

# check spelling mistakes
$ yarn spellcheck

Changelog

• View changelog

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2015-2022 Steven Chim