Proxying to node.js + express.js, session doesn't persist

[Maxim Dounin]

Hello!

On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 06:45:00AM -0400, ilya wrote:

> I have Nginx set up to proxy_pass requests to location /api to
> 127.0.0.1:3000, where Node.js is listening.
> Node.js is running a server written with Express.js.
> In my previous project, I used request session in Express to track
> users. In that project, I didn't use Nginx.
> In the current project, I can't use session because it simply doesn't
> save. I can write and read cookies, but not the request session. I
> verified that the issue is in Nginx by running exact same code without
> Nginx and being able to use request session.

How cookies are set?  I.e. please show Set-Cookie header from 
nginx (or backend) response.  I suspect domain attribute doesn't 
match hostname of your nginx server, and that's why cookies are 
rejected by browsers.  

> My nginx.conf is as follows:
> 
> http {
>     include       mime.types;
>     default_type  application/octet-stream;
> 
>     sendfile        on;
> 
>     keepalive_timeout  65;
> 
>     gzip  on;
> 
>     server {
>         listen 80;
>         server_name 173.203.105.235;
> 
>         root /home/project/public;
>         location ^~ /api/ {
>             proxy_pass_header Set-Cookie;
>             proxy_pass_header P3P;

Just a side note: these "proxy_pass_header" directives aren't 
needed.

>             proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
>         }
>     }
> }

Maxim Dounin