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nginx Cheat Sheet

Config Syntax

Validate config with gixy (static config analyzer)

Proxy Pass + Rewrite

For example strip a path before proxy passing…

location ~ <expr> {
   rewrite /<path to strip>/(.*) /$1 break;
   proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
}

Proxy Pass + Host Header

By default proxy pass doesn’t pass the header. This needs to be said explicitly:

location / {
    proxy_pass       http://localhost:8000;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
}

SNI VirtualHosts

Works using ssl_preread module

map $ssl_preread_server_name $name {
    backend.example.com      backend;
    default                  backend2;
}

upstream backend {
   [...]
}

upstream backend2 {
   [...]
}

server {
    listen      <port>;
    proxy_pass  $name;
    ssl_preread on;
}

Complex Conditions

As nginx does not support complex logic in if() conditions you need to set flags in a smart way to workaround it.

# Define a control flag
set $extra_handling 0;

# Set the control flag when needed
if ( $variable1 ~* pattern) {
    set $extra_handling 1;
}

# Unset the flag if needed
if ( $variable2 = 1 ) {
    set $extra_handling 0;
}

if ( $extra_handling = 1 ) {
    # Trigger intended behaviour
}

Mitigating security issues

A general description on secure nginx configuration can be found here: https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Strong_SSL_Security_On_nginx.html

BEAST

ssl_ciphers RC4:HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

DH downgrade

Create unique DH group

openssl dhparam -out dhparams.pem 2048

Enable it in config

ssl_dhparam {path to dhparams.pem}

Data Privacy

Alternatives to avoid tracking users by IP to be more GDPR compliant:

  • Mask IP Addresses, deterministically replace IPs with same but anonymous value using JS plugin

  • Match all but the last octect of $remote_addr with regex and insert variable in custom log_format

    # Note: add another/extend regex for IPv6
if ($remote_addr ~ (\d+).(\d+).(\d+).(\d+)) {
   set $truncated_ip $1.$2.0.1;
}
log_format  main  '[$time_local] $truncated_ip "$request" $status $body_bytes_sent $request_time "$http_referer" "$http_user_agent"';

  • Starting with nginx 1.11 use “map” to apply regex patterns and extract the result

    map $remote_addr $truncated_ip {
   ~(?P<ip>\d+\.\d+\.\d+)\.    $ip.0;
   ~(?P<ip>[^:]+:[^:]+):       $ip::;
   default                     0.0.0.0;
}
log_format  main  '[$time_local] $truncated_ip "$request" $status $body_bytes_sent $request_time "$http_referer" "$http_user_agent"';

Enabling Features

FPC with memcached

Full Page Cache (FPC) with memcached

if ($request_method = GET) {
    set $memcached_key some_prefix$request_uri;
    memcached_pass memcached;
    error_page 404 = @nocache;
}

FastCGI caching

set $nocache "";
if ($http_cookie ~ SESS) {
    set $nocache "Y";
}
fastcgi_cache mycache;
fastcgi_cache_key $scheme$host$uri$args;
fastcgi_ignore_headers Expires;
fastcgi_cache_bypass $nocache;
fastcgi_no_cache $nocache;

OSCP Stapling

Available starting with nginx 1.3.7

ssl_stapling on;
ssl_stapling_verify on;
resolver 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 valid=300s;
resolver_timeout 5s;