How can I use environment variables in Nginx.conf

From the official Nginx docker file:

Using environment variables in nginx configuration:

Out-of-the-box, Nginx doesn't support using environment variables inside most configuration blocks.

But envsubst may be used as a workaround if you need to generate your nginx configuration dynamically before nginx starts.

Here is an example using docker-compose.yml:

image: nginx
volumes:
 - ./mysite.template:/etc/nginx/conf.d/mysite.template
ports:
 - "8080:80"
environment:
 - NGINX_HOST=foobar.com
 - NGINX_PORT=80
command: /bin/bash -c "envsubst < /etc/nginx/conf.d/mysite.template > /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf && nginx -g 'daemon off;'" 

The mysite.template file may then contain variable references like this :

listen ${NGINX_PORT};

Update:

But you know this caused to its Nginx variables like this:

proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Host $host;

damaged to:

proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Host ;

So, to prevent that, i use this trick:

I have a script to run Nginx, that used on the docker-compose file as command option for Nginx server, i named it run_nginx.sh:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
export DOLLAR='$'
envsubst < nginx.conf.template > /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
nginx -g "daemon off;"

And because of defined new DOLLAR variable on run_nginx.sh script, now content of my nginx.conf.template file for Nginx itself variable is like this:

proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Host ${DOLLAR}host;

And for my defined variable is like this:

server_name  ${WEB_DOMAIN} www.${WEB_DOMAIN};

Also here, there is my real use case for that.

The official nginx image recommends using envsubst, but as pointed out by others it will replace also $host and other variables, which is not desirable. But fortunately envsubst can take as a parameter the names of variables to replace.

To avoid a very complex command parameter to the container (as in the linked example), you can write a Docker entrypoint script which will fill in the environment variables before executing the command. The entrypoint script is also a good place for validating the parameters and setting default values.

Here is an example of an nginx container which takes in API_HOST and API_PORT parameters as environment variables.

nginx-default.conf.template

resolver  127.0.0.11 valid=10s;  # recover from the backend's IP changing

server {
  listen  80;

  location / {
    root  /usr/share/nginx/html;
  }

  location /api {
    proxy_pass  http://${API_HOST}:${API_PORT};
    proxy_set_header  Host $http_host;
  }
}

docker-entrypoint.sh

#!/usr/bin/env sh
set -eu

envsubst '${API_HOST} ${API_PORT}' < /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf.template > /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

exec "$@"

Dockerfile

FROM nginx:1.15-alpine

COPY nginx-default.conf.template /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf.template

COPY docker-entrypoint.sh /
ENTRYPOINT ["/docker-entrypoint.sh"]
CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]