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selfhost:nginx [2024/02/01 11:47] – [Base URLs and sub-domains] willy | selfhost:nginx [2025/03/13 09:29] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1 | ||
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- | ====== The Reverse Proxy concept ====== | + | ====== |
The use of a **reverse proxy** is the key at the foundation of ensuring security, isolation and flexibility in accessing your self-hosted services. | The use of a **reverse proxy** is the key at the foundation of ensuring security, isolation and flexibility in accessing your self-hosted services. | ||
- | A reverse-proxy is a web server that sits in the middle and handles all requests toward your services adding, on top, layers of encyrption | + | A reverse-proxy is a web server that sits in the middle and handles all requests toward your services adding, on top, layers of encryption |
- | The reverse-proxy will also take care of handling | + | The reverse-proxy will take care of handling |
Also, using a well known, solid and proven web server will alleviate the risk that each service might expose a poorly written, non-scalable or worse, internal web server to end users. | Also, using a well known, solid and proven web server will alleviate the risk that each service might expose a poorly written, non-scalable or worse, internal web server to end users. | ||
- | And as a final note, using a reverse-proxy you can organize easily all your services under one single domain. There are limitations, | + | And as a final note, using a reverse-proxy you can organize easily all your services |
===== NGINX ===== | ===== NGINX ===== | ||
My choice for a web server in this case is [[https:// | My choice for a web server in this case is [[https:// | ||
- | * It's much easier than [[https:// | + | * It's much easier than [[https:// |
- | * It has more features than [[https:// | + | * It has more features than [[https:// |
* It is fully integrated in [[https:// | * It is fully integrated in [[https:// | ||
- | In general NGINX is fully featured but still very lightweight and secure HTTP server that shines as reverse-proxy. If you need to add more features, like [[https:// | + | In general NGINX is fully featured but still very lightweight and secure HTTP server that shines as reverse-proxy. If you need to add more features, like [[https:// |
===== Base URLs and sub-domains ===== | ===== Base URLs and sub-domains ===== | ||
- | There are two different philosophies on how to host services. | + | There are two different philosophies on how to host services: serve as a sub-path of a domain, or use sub-domains. I used to like best the // |
Let's assume you have your own domain **mydomain.com** and you want to expose a service called // | Let's assume you have your own domain **mydomain.com** and you want to expose a service called // | ||
Line 31: | Line 31: | ||
As a **sub-path**: | As a **sub-path**: | ||
- | * Pros: only one domain needed, no need to create sub-domains | + | * Pros: only one domain needed, no need to create sub-domains |
- | * Pros: easy to organize services in virtual sub-folders | + | |
* Pros: the service existence is unknown to anybody not authorized | * Pros: the service existence is unknown to anybody not authorized | ||
- | * Cons: each service must support Base URL setting | + | * Cons: each service must support Base URL setting |
+ | * Cons: SSO support must be somehow consistent to avoid headaches (well, SSO support is still spotty today!) | ||
+ | * Cons: security wise, cookies and CORS can bring unintended vulnerabilities between services, because they all share the same subdomain. | ||
+ | * Cons: all services share the same HTTPS certificate. | ||
As a **sub-domain**: | As a **sub-domain**: | ||
* Pros: any service will work, no need to support Base URL | * Pros: any service will work, no need to support Base URL | ||
- | * Cons: require additional certificates for HTTPS/SSL for each sub-domain | + | * Pros: each service can have it's own HTTPS certificate |
- | * Cons: cannot easily organize together | + | * Pros: each service is neatly organized in it's own subdomain |
+ | * Pros: cookies are not shared between services, and CORS protection works | ||
* Cons: exposed to public knowledge (DNS records are public) that the service exist | * Cons: exposed to public knowledge (DNS records are public) that the service exist | ||
+ | * Cons: also public knowledge because there are services indexing all existing certificates. | ||
- | I prefer | + | __Note:__ you can create // |
- | Then using sub-paths, | + | To make a story short, i go with subdomains for well separated services, while going with sub-paths |
- | ===== Installing NGINX ===== | + | ===== Reverse Proxy propagation |
- | NGINX installation on the home server is pretty straightforward, | + | |
- | So create | + | The reverse proxy is installed on the local server, i assume your local server is reachable from remote (see [[networking: |
- | < | + | |
- | app-misc/ | + | |
- | www-servers/ | + | |
- | </ | + | |
- | The **dav**, **dav_ext** | + | The reverse proxy will need to be accessible to both the internal users and the external users. You could setup two different proxies, but i prefer to have only one listening to both worlds. I will assume that there might be differences between internal and external users in terms of authentication or service availability. The underlying idea is that you will have your reverse proxy listening to different ports: one for internal access |
- | (the first line is needed at the time of writing this page, YMMV) | + | The setup i am describing uses three different ports: |
+ | * Port 80: both to local and remote, will just be a redirect to HTTPS | ||
+ | * Port 443: standard HTTPS for **internal** access | ||
+ | * Port 8443: HTTPS for **external** access | ||
- | Note: you might want to tweak the second line to your needs, see the [[https:// | + | **Note:** for Let's Encrypt CertBot to work properly |
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Installing NGINX ===== | ||
- | A brief explanation of the above USE flags: | + | NGINX installation on the home server is pretty straightforward, |
- | * // | + | * // |
+ | * // | ||
* //sub// is used to allow substitutions inside the pages proxied, to fix web applications that don't play well with reverse-proxies | * //sub// is used to allow substitutions inside the pages proxied, to fix web applications that don't play well with reverse-proxies | ||
* //gunzip// is used to unzip the requests and let the //sub// module works also on compressed requests | * //gunzip// is used to unzip the requests and let the //sub// module works also on compressed requests | ||
+ | * //realip// is needed by SSO like authelia | ||
+ | |||
+ | While NGINX support WebDAV, i strongly suggest you __dont__ enable it as you will not be using it. NGINX WebDAV support is lacking and not really recomended. | ||
+ | |||
+ | So create the file **/ | ||
+ | <file - nginx> | ||
+ | app-misc/ | ||
+ | www-servers/ | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Note: you might want to tweak the second line to your needs, see the [[https:// | ||
Now install nginx: | Now install nginx: | ||
<code bash> | <code bash> | ||
- | > | + | emerge -v nginx |
</ | </ | ||
- | ==== NGINX pam_auth ==== | + | You can start it after you have configured it. |
- | I think it's nice that with NGINX you can authenticate your users directly with your home server users. This means you don't need to add a second set of users, and that the users will only need one password, and no sync is required between HTTP users and server users. This is achieved using the **pam_auth** module on Linux. You have already built nginx with pam_auth support, but you need to configure it. | ||
- | Create the file **/ | + | ===== NGINX main configuration ===== |
- | < | + | |
- | auth required pam_unix.so | + | |
- | account required pam_unix.so | + | |
- | </ | + | |
+ | There are many ways to write nice NGINX config files, i will show you mine which i find quite effective, organized and simple. It make use of the //import// directive and splits the configuration to at least one file per service and one file per sub-domain. | ||
- | ==== NGINX main configuration ==== | + | Assumptions: |
+ | * Your domain is **mydomain.com**, | ||
+ | * Your service X is reachable under **https:// | ||
+ | * Your service Y is reachable under **https:// | ||
+ | * All HTTP traffic is redirected to HTTPS | ||
+ | * You have a single Let's Encrypt SSL certificate which covers all the subdomains of your domain (either a wildcard or a comulative cert it's up to you) | ||
+ | * You might have more than one main domain | ||
- | You need two different NINX configurations. One facing the home network, which will serve on HP only, and one facing the external world, which will serve HTTPS only with HTTP as a redirect to HTTPS. | + | The top-level **mydomain.com** will have it's own folder, then you will create a set of sub-folders stemming from the main domain, one folder for each sub-domains, and inside each folder one configuration file for each sub-path served on that sub-domain. |
- | NGINX is very flexible in configuration, | + | So you will need the following files: |
+ | * **/ | ||
+ | * **/ | ||
+ | * **/ | ||
+ | * **/ | ||
+ | * **/ | ||
+ | * plus any other SSO specific config files. | ||
- | The main configuration file is located at **/ | + | The **certbot.conf** |
- | <code nginx> | + | |
- | server { | + | |
- | # Home facing server, HTTP only | + | |
- | listen 127.0.0.1: | + | |
- | server_name 192.168.0.1; | + | |
- | include " | ||
- | access_log / | + | ==== Top-level configuration |
- | error_log / | + | |
- | } | + | |
+ | So, here is the content for the main **/ | ||
+ | <file - nginx.conf> | ||
+ | user nginx nginx; | ||
+ | |||
+ | error_log / | ||
+ | |||
+ | events { | ||
+ | worker_connections 1024; | ||
+ | use epoll; | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | |||
+ | http { | ||
+ | include / | ||
+ | # Unknown stuff is considered to be binaries | ||
+ | default_type application/ | ||
+ | # Set a reasonably informing log format | ||
+ | log_format main | ||
+ | ' | ||
+ | '" | ||
+ | '" | ||
+ | '" | ||
+ | # Improve file upload to client by avoiding userspace copying | ||
+ | tcp_nopush on; | ||
+ | sendfile on; | ||
+ | # Indexes are html by default | ||
+ | index index.html; | ||
+ | |||
+ | # General catch-all for HTTPS redirection, | ||
server { | server { | ||
- | | + | |
- | server_name my_remote_server_name; | + | |
- | | + | } |
- | | + | |
- | include " | + | # Using Authelia SSO can lead to longer headers, better increase buffers |
+ | proxy_headers_hash_max_size 512; | ||
+ | proxy_headers_hash_bucket_size 128; | ||
- | access_log /var/log/ | + | # Add domains here (only the main config file for each domain!) |
- | | + | include com.mydomain/mydomain.conf; |
+ | |||
+ | # This is for SSL and needs to be included only once for all the domains | ||
+ | include | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | </ | ||
- | listen 127.0.0.1: | + | This will set your defaults for every service and site served |
- | ssl_certificate | + | |
- | ssl_certificate_key | + | |
- | include / | + | |
- | ssl_dhparam / | + | |
- | location .well-known/ | ||
- | auth_pam off; | ||
- | autoindex on; | ||
- | } | ||
- | } | + | ==== mydomain.com configuration |
+ | Now, for the specific **mydomain.com**, | ||
+ | <file - mydomain.conf> | ||
- | server { | + | access_log / |
- | # remote facing server, HTTP to HTTPS redirection | + | error_log / |
- | listen 8080; | + | |
- | | + | # simple catch-all server for the domain |
- | error_log / | + | server { |
- | | + | # You might want to specify also the internal |
+ | server_name mydomain.com; | ||
+ | # Port for users from outside | ||
+ | listen 8443 ssl; | ||
+ | # Port for users from inside | ||
+ | listen 443 ssl; | ||
+ | http2 on; | ||
+ | |||
+ | # unauthenticated static landing page (maybe a "get off my lawn" GIF...) | ||
+ | location / { | ||
+ | root /var/www/html; | ||
} | } | ||
- | </ | ||
- | I will walk you trough it a bit. | + | # include all sub-paths for mydomain.com: |
+ | | ||
- | You have one simple section for the home server: it listen on port 80 and logs to some specific home only files. I choose not to use HTTPS inside the home network because it would be complicated to automatically generate the required certificates. If you still want HTTPS on the home side, you should use self-signed certificates, | + | # include HTTPS certs stuff: |
+ | | ||
+ | } | ||
- | The remote HTTP server is even simpler: just a redirect to the remote HTTPS server, listening on port 8080 since port 80 is already taken by the home server. You never, ever, want to go not encrypted on the outside world. The remote HTTPS server is on port 8443 and adds all the specific HTTPS certificate stuff. Do not bother with it yet, i will explain a bit more later on. | + | # include all sub-domains entry points: |
+ | include com.mydomain/ | ||
+ | </ | ||
- | Please note that due to the HTTPS certificates (which at this point are still to be created) | + | This will create |
- | You can see that i used the **include** directive to point to a common **folders/ | ||
- | <code nginx> | ||
- | # This might be needed to direct upload of NZB files | ||
- | client_max_body_size 200M; | ||
- | # This is required sometimes by Deluge web GUI giant cookies | ||
- | large_client_header_buffers 4 32k; | ||
- | # Here you will put your dashboard | + | ==== sub-domains configuration |
- | root / | + | |
- | # Specific service configurations | + | It should be clear now that each sub-domain will have it's own sub-folder and contain at least one (or more) configuration files inside for each sub-path, like the one for serviceY. |
- | include " | + | |
- | include " | + | I will assume that //serviceY// perform it's own authentication and cannot use SSO: |
- | include " | + | <file - y.conf> |
- | include " | + | server { |
- | include | + | |
- | include | + | listen 8443 ssl; # external access |
- | include " | + | |
- | include " | + | |
- | include " | + | error_log |
- | include " | + | location |
- | include | + | # |
+ | | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | # | ||
+ | | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | I suggest you split all sub-paths for each sub-domain in a separate config file and //include// them inside the //server// block, like i did above for // | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Differentiate between Internal or External access for services ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | In my setup i have some differences when a service is accessed from //within// the home network, or from //outside// the home network. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The key point is that // | ||
+ | |||
+ | So, for example, a service _only_ available inside the home network will have something like: | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | server { | ||
+ | server_name internal_only.mydomain.com; | ||
+ | | ||
+ | http2 on; | ||
+ | access_log | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | #Generic proxy pass to proxied service | ||
+ | proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000; | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | # | ||
+ | | ||
+ | } | ||
</ | </ | ||
- | As you can see, beside | + | While a service |
+ | < | ||
+ | server { | ||
+ | server_name serviceZ.mydomain.com; | ||
+ | listen 8443 ssl; # external access | ||
+ | listen 443 ssl; # internal access | ||
+ | http2 on; | ||
+ | access_log / | ||
+ | error_log / | ||
+ | location / { | ||
+ | #Generic proxy pass to proxied | ||
+ | proxy_pass http:// | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | # include HTTPS certs stuff: | ||
+ | | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | </ | ||
- | The //root// directive is where you will need to put your dashboard | + | A service where you want to differentiate between internal and external, for example adding SSO authentication only for external access: |
+ | < | ||
+ | server { | ||
+ | server_name serviceZ.mydomain.com; | ||
+ | listen 443 ssl; # internal access | ||
+ | http2 on; | ||
+ | access_log | ||
+ | error_log / | ||
+ | location / { | ||
+ | #Generic proxy pass to proxied service | ||
+ | proxy_pass http:// | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | # include HTTPS certs stuff: | ||
+ | | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | server { | ||
+ | server_name serviceZ.mydomain.com; | ||
+ | listen 8443 ssl; # external access | ||
+ | http2 on; | ||
+ | [[[ put here your SSO lines ]]] | ||
+ | access_log / | ||
+ | error_log / | ||
+ | location / { | ||
+ | #Generic proxy pass to proxied service | ||
+ | proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1: | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | # include HTTPS certs stuff: | ||
+ | | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | In this case, you can even optimize more by moving the **location** lines, which are identical, inside another file that you __include__ twice. Better to avoid redundancy! | ||
+ | Of course, refer to the [[selfhost: | ||
+ | ===== Generate SSL certificates for HTTPS ===== | ||
+ | Nowadays HTTPS is a must for many reasons, including privacy and security. I assume this is a mandatory requirement. A lot of services will not even work without HTTPS. | ||
+ | Enabling HTTPS requires the generation of valid SSL certificates for your domain(s). You can do that with self-signed certificates but that will still flag as insecure on your browser and some client apps might even not work properly. A better solution is to use the [[https:// | ||
- | ==== Generate SSL certificates for HTTPS ==== | + | How does it work? |
- | Enabling HTTPS requires the generation | + | first of all: |
+ | - You ask Let's Encrypt to create a certificate | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
- | Let's Encrypt depends on Certbot, which is a python script pretty powerful and efficient that can generate and renew all your certificates magically and automatically. It works by sending requests | + | Then: |
+ | - You connect with browser | ||
+ | - Your server provide the certificate | ||
+ | - Your browser verify that the certificate is valid against the Let's Encrypt | ||
+ | - You are good to go! | ||
+ | Using // | ||
+ | |||
+ | Luckly, Let's Encrypt provides a neat software called **CertBot** that can automate all the steps for the major web servers, including NGINX. CertBot will send requests to Let's Encrypt, spin up an NGINX server for you and store the certificate. The only thing you need to do is including the proper config file into NGINX and restart it. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Install CertBot and the NGINX plugin: | ||
<code bash> | <code bash> | ||
> emerge -v certbot-nginx certbot | > emerge -v certbot-nginx certbot | ||
Line 191: | Line 336: | ||
<code bash> | <code bash> | ||
- | > certbot --nginx certonly -d remote_server_name | + | > certbot --nginx certonly -d mydomain.com -d y.mydomain.com -d xxxx |
</ | </ | ||
- | this will generate the certificate. | + | Now, you **must** |
- | Make sure that certbot | + | |
+ | Put this content into your **/ | ||
+ | <file - certbot.conf> | ||
+ | ssl_certificate / | ||
+ | ssl_certificate_key / | ||
+ | include / | ||
+ | ssl_dhparam / | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Of course, adapt the paths for your specific case. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Let's Encrypt | ||
<code bash> | <code bash> | ||
- | > | + | crontab -e |
</ | </ | ||
Line 205: | Line 361: | ||
31 16 * * * certbot renew &>> | 31 16 * * * certbot renew &>> | ||
</ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | there you go! | ||
You can now start your nginx server: | You can now start your nginx server: | ||
<code bash> | <code bash> | ||
- | > | + | rc-update add nginx default |
- | > / | + | / |
</ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Quick and dirty script for new subdomains ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | When you need to **add** a new subbomain to your certificate, | ||
+ | <file - certbot_script.sh> | ||
+ | #!/bin/bash | ||
+ | |||
+ | DOMAINS=" | ||
+ | |||
+ | domains= | ||
+ | for i in ${DOMAINS} | ||
+ | do | ||
+ | domains=" | ||
+ | done | ||
+ | |||
+ | certbot certonly --expand --nginx ${domains} | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | So __FIRST__ you **update** the script adding the new domain at the end of the DOMAINS line, then you run the script and restart your NGINX. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Enable CGI support with NGINX ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | To be able to run system scripts and, in general, [[https:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | For using CGI directly with NGINX (another option could be to run Apache or another web server in addition, but why?) you can install and setup [[https:// | ||
+ | <code bash> | ||
+ | emerge www-misc/ | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Spawn-fcgi allows you to run one instance of fcgiwrap for each service you need to run. This is an excellent approach to keep services separated and each one in it's own user. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Since you want to run // | ||
+ | * Setup your // | ||
+ | * Create a start script in **/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | The contents of the config file sohuld be: | ||
+ | <file - spawn-fcgi.fcgiwrap> | ||
+ | # The " | ||
+ | FCGI_SOCKET=/ | ||
+ | FCGI_PORT= | ||
+ | # The -f send stderr to nginx log | ||
+ | FCGI_PROGRAM="/ | ||
+ | FCGI_USER=nginx | ||
+ | FCGI_GROUP=nginx | ||
+ | FCGI_EXTRA_OPTIONS=" | ||
+ | ALLOWED_ENV=" | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | And to do all the above: | ||
+ | <code bash> | ||
+ | cp / | ||
+ | ln -s / | ||
+ | rc-update add spawn-fcgi.fcgiwrap default | ||
+ | / | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Then enable it in your NGINX config by adding the following directives | ||
+ | <file - cgi.conf> | ||
+ | | ||
+ | fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT / | ||
+ | fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME | ||
+ | fastcgi_pass unix:/ | ||
+ | } | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ===== In short: add & enable a service ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | Assuming you want to add a new service to your Reverse Proxy and the relative configuration has been written in **service.conf** file, you need to **include** it inside your URL's configuration file. If the service needs to be under **https:// | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | include " | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | and then restart nginx: | ||
+ | <code bash> | ||
+ | / | ||
+ | </ | ||