Reverse proxy from NodeJS to Apache using node-http-proxy does not work

Question

While experimenting with node.js on my vps I stumbled across a problem I can not seem to get fixed.

I have an apache server running alongside node.js on ubuntu 13.04. My idea was to create a reverse proxy using node-http-proxy. Enough information about this can be found, but I seem to have an error that I can not find.

First I changed the apache ports:

NameVirtualHost *:9000
Listen 9000

Then I have my hello.js file:

var http = require('http');
var httpProxy = require('http-proxy');

var options = {
        router: {
                'somesite.com': '127:0:0:1:9000'
        }
}

var proxyServer = httpProxy.createServer(options).listen(80);

console.log("Proxy server running!");

and finally the apache somesite.com config:

<VirtualHost *:9000>
        ServerName somesite.com
        ServerAdmin info@somesite.com
        ServerAlias www.somesite.com

        DocumentRoot /var/www/somesite.com/public_html
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride None
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>

        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
        <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

I have a basic html file in public_html to make sure everything is working. When I start both servers and go to somesite.com then I just see a blank wepbage (if I inspect source there is nothing, instead of my own file).

If I start a simple node server on another port and route traffic to that port, that works, so I'm assuming my problem is apache related, but I can't figure out what is wrong.

Edit 1: Apparently my proxy only worked for somesite.com and not www.somesite.com. If I go to somesite.com I get:

 An error has occurred: {"code":"EINVAL","errno":"EINVAL","syscall":"connect"}

Edit 2: If I check the access and error log from apache it seems it never receives anything. No messages of me to be found

Edit 3: I changed the port on which nodejs is listening, thinking that maybe the running as root has something to do with it, but even running on a random high port, it is not working. It can't seem to make a connection between itself and the apache socket (which works perfectly when I directly browse to it).

Answer 1

Apparently replacing 127.0.0.1 with localhost in the hello.js script did the trick. Not completely sure why (I guess it has something to do with my hosts file), but it works.