Local Nginx with HTTPS using Docker and mkcert

This project provides a simple setup for running a local Nginx web server with a browser-trusted SSL certificate for HTTPS. It uses Docker Compose for service management and mkcert for certificate creation.

This setup is ideal for local development of web applications that require a secure context (https://) without the browser's "Your connection is not private" warnings.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following installed on your system:

• Docker
• Docker Compose
• mkcert (A simple tool for making locally-trusted development certificates) brew install mkcert

Project Structure

.
├── certs/
│   ├── localhost.crt
│   └── localhost.key
├── docker-compose.yml
├── html/
│   └── index.html
├── nginx/
│   └── conf.d/
│       └── default.conf
└── README.md

• certs/: Stores the SSL certificate and private key generated by mkcert.
• docker-compose.yml: Defines and configures the Nginx service.
• html/: Contains the static website files served by Nginx.
• nginx/conf.d/: Holds the Nginx server block configurations.

Setup Instructions

Step 1: Install the mkcert Local Certificate Authority (CA)

You only need to do this once per machine. This command installs a new local CA into your system's trust stores, making any certificates it generates trusted by your browsers.

mkcert -install

Step 2: Generate a Locally-Trusted Certificate

Navigate to the root of this project directory. The following command will generate a certificate (localhost.crt) and a private key (localhost.key) inside the certs/ directory.

The certificate will be valid for localhost, 127.0.0.1, and ::1.

# Create the directory if it doesn't exist
mkdir -p certs

# Generate the certificate
mkcert -key-file ./certs/localhost.key -cert-file ./certs/localhost.crt "localhost" 127.0.0.1 ::1

Step 3: Start the Nginx Server

With the certificates generated, you can now start the Nginx container using Docker Compose.

docker compose up -d

Step 4: Access Your Secure Local Site

Open your browser and navigate to https://localhost.

You should see the static page served securely over HTTPS, with a valid certificate lock icon in the address bar and no security warnings.

Stopping the Server

To stop and remove the Nginx container, run:

docker compose down