How to redirect HTTP to HTTPS with Sails/React?

Question

Current state: Depending on the npm start script, my web app is accessible by at the http:// address, or the https:// address, but not both.

Goal: I'd like the app to run on https://, and for any http:// requests to be redirected to https://.

App info: The web app is created with Sails for the server, and create-react-app for the UI. To run locally, I use two terminals to start each up (server on :1337, UI on :3000). To run in prod, I build the UI and copy the build into the server folder, then start the server on :84 (:80 already taken).

What I've tried:

I've tried adding redirection on the Sails server by adding middleware and policies.
I've tried adding redirection on the UI by adding a script in the HTML header, checking for window.location.protocol in index.js, adding to the http-proxy-middleware, and using react-https-redirect.

In all cases, I'm able to access the app if I go to the https:// address, but get err_empty_response from the http:// one. None of my http:// requests seem to even reach the app or server.

I've heard that using NGINX as a load-balancer may solve this, but I'm hoping for a solution that doesn't require as much set up. Any suggestions?

Have you set a redirect on your http web server so that all http requests go through https. Then you can remove your javascript middleware/redirects so that the http redirects are handled by the web server first (you could still have sails middleware/policies as a second layer). — Anthony, Sep 19 '20 at 04:14
@Anthony, by web server do you mean the react UI, or the sails server? How can I get either of them to listen for http requests? Only https requests seem to be reaching them. — Awan-23, Sep 24 '20 at 12:48
Gave up trying to have port :84 serve both HTTP and HTTPS requests. Changed main port to be :94 serving HTTPS, and added a listener on :84 to redirect to :94. — Awan-23, Oct 09 '20 at 13:58

How to redirect HTTP to HTTPS with Sails/React?

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