Exposing a Node.js App Over 80/443 on a Subdomain in DDEV

Have you ever needed to run a separate Node.js application alongside your main site in DDEV, and serve it securely over ports 80 and 443 on a custom subdomain? While DDEV has built-in mechanisms for exposing additional ports, sometimes you need more control, especially if you want to expos it through a domain like frontend.example.ddev.site instead of a port-specific URL. This is where Traefik, bundled with DDEV, becomes incredibly powerful.

In this post, we’ll walk through how to configure DDEV and Traefik to proxy requests from a subdomain directly to your Node.js app on port 3000 within the DDEV web container.

Why Not Just Use `web_extra_exposed_ports`?

DDEV’s’ web_extra_exposed_ports feature is great for making your service accessible via a specific port (e.g., (3000)). However, it doesn’t magically set up a subdomain for you to use on standard web ports (80/443). If you want frontend.example.ddev.site to map to your Node.js app over HTTPS, you need a reverse proxy rule. That’s where Traefik comes in.

Step 1: Update Your `.ddev/config.yaml`

In your project’s .ddev/config.yaml, define the project name and the additional hostname you want to use. For example:

name: example

additional_hostnames:
  - frontend.example

(Optional) You can still use web_extra_exposed_ports to expose the Node.js port if you want:

web_extra_exposed_ports:
  - name: node-app
    container_port: 3000
    http_port: 3000
    https_port: 3001

However, for a subdomain over standard web ports, the critical part is the next step with Traefik.

Step 2: Edit your project-level Traefik Configuration File

DDEV will generate a Traefik configuration file in your .ddev/traefik/config directory. You will need to edit this file and add configuration to it in the routers and services sections.

Remove the #ddev-generated line at the top of the file.

Please note: as always, this means that the file now becomes your responsibility and you will need to update it manually if you add new services etc. This process should become easier once This issue gets finished and released.

Find the routers section of the file, you need to add two routers: one for HTTP (port 80) and one for HTTPS (port 443), leaving intact the existing ones:

http:
  routers:
    # Router for HTTP (port 80)
    example-web-80-http-frontend:
      entrypoints:
        - http-80
      rule: Host(`frontend.example.ddev.site`)
      service: "example-web-3000"
      ruleSyntax: v3
      tls: false
      priority: 100

    # Router for HTTPS (port 443)
    example-web-80-https-frontend:
      entrypoints:
        - http-443
      rule: Host(`frontend.example.ddev.site`)
      service: "example-web-3000"
      ruleSyntax: v3
      tls: true
      priority: 100

Find the services section of the file: here you will add a service that points to the Node.js app on port 3000. Again, leave the already defined services in place.

http:
  services:
    # The custom service that routes to your Node app
    example-web-3000:
      loadbalancer:
        servers:
          - url: http://ddev-example-web:3000

Here’s what’s happening:

Routers: Each router inspects incoming requests. If the hostname matches frontend.example.ddev.site, it passes the request to the example-web-3000 service.
Service: Defines where to actually send the traffic. In this case, http://ddev-example-web:3000 is the internal address of the web container running on port 3000.

Step 3: Restart DDEV

Run:

ddev restart

DDEV will pick up your new Traefik configuration, and you should now be able to access your Node.js application at:

ddev launch https://frontend.example.ddev.site

No more messing with non-standard port numbers in your URLs!

Wrapping Up

By leveraging Traefik’s routing capabilities, you can expose any service running in the web container on standard HTTP/HTTPS ports and map it to a dedicated subdomain. This approach keeps your development environment clean, user-friendly, and closer to production-like URLs.

If you’ve followed these steps, your Node.js application will be served seamlessly over frontend.example.ddev.site.

Further Reading

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