Appengine - Local dev server with https

Question

Goal: Reduce dev - feedback cycle by using App Engine dev server. For my use this must be available as a public HTTPS address. App Engine dev server only supports HTTP.

How to do this: Use ngrok to expose local dev environment as https publically available address.

Reverse proxy with nginx from https to http.

This seems possible, but for life of me I haven't got the config working.

I'm working with App Engine Standard Java on osx.

Other working solutions or ideas are welcome. Surely there is a way to do this.

Do the following answers help you with your request: enable your AppEngine dev server with HTTPS?? — JL-HaiNan, May 03 '17 at 20:24
Btw, you can take a look at the previous SO post regarding this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8849020/gae-dev-appserver-py-over-https — JL-HaiNan, May 03 '17 at 20:29

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 30 '17 at 12:05

In case you've got only one module you need to reach out via SSL, you can simply use this one https://github.com/cameronhunter/local-ssl-proxy. Installation and usage are super easy. Just change the target port to your module port and then browse it via https to the source port. If you need to reach to multiple modules, you need to run it multiple times with different params (ports).

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 30 '17 at 13:53

I use NGINX as proxy with self signed certificate for my project https://debtstracker.io/

Here is my NGINX config. You would also need to add some yourproject.local record to your hosts file.

    server {  # This servers dynamic content of DebtsTracker.io project over HTTPS
            listen          443;
            server_name     debtstracker.local;
            ssl                  on;
            ssl_certificate      /etc/ssl/certs/debtstracker-local.crt;
            ssl_certificate_key  /etc/ssl/private/debtstracker-local.key;

            location /app/ {
                    proxy_pass   http://localhost:8100/;
                    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
            }

            location / {
                    proxy_pass   http://127.0.0.1:8080;
                    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
            }
    }

The first location is for GAE devserver and 2nd for Ionic project.

Here is a bash file I use to generate certificates:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# https://www.accuweaver.com/2014/09/19/make-chrome-accept-a-self-signed-certificate-on-osx/

# https://gist.github.com/jessedearing/2351836

# Run using "sudo"

echo "Generating an SSL private key to sign your certificate..."
openssl genrsa -des3 -out debtstracker-local.key 1024

echo "Generating a Certificate Signing Request..."
openssl req -new -key debtstracker-local.key -out debtstracker-local.csr

echo "Removing pass-phrase from key (for nginx)..."
cp debtstracker-local.key debtstracker-local.key.org
openssl rsa -in debtstracker-local.key.org -out debtstracker-local.key
rm debtstracker-local.key.org

echo "Generating certificate..."
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in debtstracker-local.csr -signkey debtstracker-local.key -out debtstracker-local.crt

echo "Copying certificate (debtstracker-local.crt) to /etc/ssl/certs/"
mkdir -p  /etc/ssl/certs
cp debtstracker-local.crt /etc/ssl/certs/

echo "Copying key (debtstracker-local.key) to /etc/ssl/private/"
mkdir -p  /etc/ssl/private
cp debtstracker-local.key /etc/ssl/private/

Hope this helps. Took me a while to set this up.

This completely works for me. Now I can use local dev server as a public web address and not pay for instance hours while deving. Also quicker than deploying. Now if we just had something like instant run then we'd really be cooking. Suppose JRebel would work — Patrick Jackson, May 04 '17 at 15:07
Instant run is an Android development tool that updates Java code changes incrementally in a running app. Would be great to have something similar for appengine — Patrick Jackson, May 04 '17 at 19:19

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 01 '17 at 20:41

1

ngrok supports https urls to any http port, so you can just use ngrok to proxy an https domain to the GAE dev server port

If you have a paid for account, you can setup CNAMEs to use your own domains

ngrok http -hostname=dev.example.com 8080

answered May 01 '17 at 20:41

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Appengine - Local dev server with https

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