Deploy a Xatkit bot behind a reverse proxy

In this article we detail how to configure and deploy a Xatkit bot behind a reverse proxy. We use our GreetingsBot example and we configure our web server to make its test page accessible at /greetingsbot/admin.

Note that our GreetingsBot bot is running on localhost:5000, you can adapt the port numbers to your use case if needed.

Install nginx and create a Xatkit configuration

1. Install nginx

sudo apt get install nginx

2. Disable the default config

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

3. Create a new configuration

sudo touch /etc/nginx/sites-available/xatkit.conf

Note that the sites-available directory (and the sites-enabled one used later in the article) are Debian conventions, you may need to adapt to your specific operating system.

4. Configure the proxy

server {

  listen 80 default_server;

  location /greetingsbot/admin {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:5000/admin;
  }

  location /greetingsbot/server {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:5001/socket.io;
  }
}

Our configuration defines two locations: the first one is the page where the bot can be accessed (similarly to http://localhost:5000 when running a bot locally), and the second one point to the socket.io server that receives the user messages from the web component.

Note that the second location is not required when the deployed bot does not use the web component (e.g. Slack bots)

5. Enable the new configuration

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/xatkit.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/xatkit.conf

6. Restart nginx

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Configure the deployed bot

The deployed bot needs to know its public URL to properly render the /admin page. We can set it in the .properties file of the bot:

xatkit.server.public_url = <your base URL>/greetingsbot
xatkit.react.public_url = <your base URL>/greetingsbot/server

The server public URL is required to specify the location of the javascript/css files to use, and the react public URL contains the URL used by the web component to connect to the socket.io server.

**Warning **the xatkit.server.public_url value should not include /admin. See this issue for more information.

Restart your bot, and access it at <your base URL>/greetingsbot/admin!