How to run Docker behind an Nginx reverse proxy

A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to run some experiment to see how Docker could run in a cloud / shared hosting like environment. In the mean time, Docker released version 1.4 bringing additional security/authentication and Docker machine to automate the process of creating and running a remote Docker instance.

Shared hosting farms are usually built around some kind of public gateway for incoming/outgoing traffic as well as management traffic including FTP and SSH. Te largest part of the farm - not unlike an iceberg - being “hidden” in a private network behind these gateways.

So, my question was, is there any way we can imagine that could enable a similar gateway behavior with Docker, including multi-tenancy support and all features you’d expect?

It turns out, there is.