Proxy with express.js

Question

To avoid same-domain AJAX issues, I want my node.js web server to forward all requests from URL /api/BLABLA to another server, for example other_domain.co

Answer 1

I used the following setup to direct everything on /rest to my backend server (on port 8080), and all other requests to the frontend server (a webpack server on port 3001). It supports all HTTP-methods, doesn't lose any request meta-info and supports websockets (which I need for hot reloading)

var express  = require('express');
var app      = express();
var httpProxy = require('http-proxy');
var apiProxy = httpProxy.createProxyServer();
var backend = 'http://localhost:8080',
    frontend = 'http://localhost:3001';

app.all("/rest/*", function(req, res) {
  apiProxy.web(req, res, {target: backend});
});

app.all("/*", function(req, res) {
    apiProxy.web(req, res, {target: frontend});
});

var server = require('http').createServer(app);
server.on('upgrade', function (req, socket, head) {
  apiProxy.ws(req, socket, head, {target: frontend});
});
server.listen(3000);