authelia/docs/content/en/integration/proxies/nginx.md

title	description	lead	date	draft	images	menu	weight	toc	aliases
NGINX	An integration guide for Authelia and the NGINX reverse proxy	A guide on integrating Authelia with the nginx reverse proxy.	2022-06-15T17:51:47+10:00	false		integration parent proxies	350	true	/i/nginx /docs/deployment/supported-proxies/nginx.html

NGINX is a reverse proxy supported by Authelia.

Important: When using these guides it's important to recognize that we cannot provide a guide for every possible method of deploying a proxy. These guides show a suggested setup only and you need to understand the proxy configuration and customize it to your needs. To-that-end we include links to the official proxy documentation throughout this documentation and in the See Also section.

Get Started

It's strongly recommended that users setting up Authelia for the first time take a look at our Get Started guide. This takes you through various steps which are essential to bootstrapping Authelia.

Requirements

You need the following to run Authelia with NGINX:

• NGINX must be built with the http_auth_request module which is relatively common
• NGINX must be built with the http_realip module which is relatively common

Trusted Proxies

Important: You should read the Forwarded Headers section and this section as part of any proxy configuration. Especially if you have never read it before.

Important: The included example is NOT meant for production use. It's used expressly as an example to showcase how you can configure multiple IP ranges. You should customize this example to fit your specific architecture and needs. You should only include the specific IP address ranges of the trusted proxies within your architecture and should not trust entire subnets unless that subnet only has trusted proxies and no other services.

NGINX's http_realip module is used to configure the trusted proxies' configuration. In our examples this is configured in the proxy.conf file. Each set_realip_from directive adds a trusted proxy address range to the trusted proxies list. Any request that comes from a source IP not in one of the configured ranges results in the header being replaced with the source IP of the client.

Configuration

Below you will find commented examples of the following configuration:

• Authelia Portal
  • Running in Docker
  • Has the container name authelia
• Protected Endpoint (Nextcloud)
  • Running in Docker
  • Has the container name nextcloud
• Supporting Configuration Snippets
• Assumes the following since we cannot reasonably provide a configuration for every architecture:
  • NGINX is also running in Docker and uses Docker DNS as a resolver which is standard
  • NGINX shares a network with the authelia and nextcloud containers

Standard Example

This example is for using the Authelia portal redirection flow on a specific endpoint. It requires you to have the authelia-location.conf, authelia-authrequest.conf, and proxy.conf snippets. In the example these files exist in the /config/nginx/ directory. The /config/nginx/ssl.conf snippet is expected to have the configuration for TLS or SSL but is not included as part of the examples.

Authelia Portal

auth.example.com.conf

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name auth.example.com;

    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name auth.example.com;

    include /config/nginx/ssl.conf;

    location / {
        include /config/nginx/proxy.conf;

        set $upstream_authelia http://authelia:9091;
        proxy_pass $upstream_authelia;
    }
}

Protected Endpoint

nextcloud.example.com.conf

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name nextcloud.example.com;

    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name nextcloud.example.com;

    include /config/nginx/ssl.conf;
    include /config/nginx/authelia-location.conf;

    location / {
        include /config/nginx/proxy.conf;
        include /config/nginx/authelia-authrequest.conf;

        set $upstream_nextcloud https://nextcloud;
        proxy_pass $upstream_nextcloud;
    }
}

HTTP Basic Authentication Example

This example is for using HTTP basic auth on a specific endpoint. It is based on the full example above. It requires you to have the authelia-location-basic.conf, authelia-authrequest-basic.conf, and proxy.conf snippets. In the example these files exist in the /config/nginx/ directory. The /config/nginx/ssl.conf snippet is expected to have the configuration for TLS or SSL but is not included as part of the examples.

The Authelia Portal configuration can be reused for this example as such it isn't repeated.

HTTP Basic Authentication Protected Endpoint

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name nextcloud.example.com;

    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name nextcloud.example.com;

    include /config/nginx/ssl.conf;
    include /config/nginx/authelia-location-basic.conf; # Use the "basic" endpoint

    location / {
        include /config/nginx/proxy.conf;
        include /config/nginx/authelia-authrequest-basic.conf;

        set $upstream_nextcloud https://nextcloud;
        proxy_pass $upstream_nextcloud;
    }
}

Supporting Configuration Snippets

The following configuration files are snippets that are used as includes in other files. The includes in the other files match the headings, so if you wish to put them in a specific location or rename them, then make sure to update the includes appropriately. Only the proxy.conf, authelia-location.conf, and authelia-authrequest.conf are required; see the descriptions for the others as to their use cases.

proxy.conf

The following is an example proxy.conf. The important directives include the real_ip directives which you should read Trusted Proxies section to understand, or set the X-Forwarded-Proto, X-Forwarded-Host, X-Forwarded-Uri, and X-Forwarded-For headers.

## Headers
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Uri $request_uri;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header Connection "";

## Basic Proxy Configuration
client_body_buffer_size 128k;
proxy_next_upstream error timeout invalid_header http_500 http_502 http_503; ## Timeout if the real server is dead.
proxy_redirect  http://  $scheme://;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_cache_bypass $cookie_session;
proxy_no_cache $cookie_session;
proxy_buffers 64 256k;

## Trusted Proxies Configuration
## Please read the following documentation before configuring this:
##     https://www.authelia.com/integration/proxies/nginx/#trusted-proxies
# set_real_ip_from 10.0.0.0/8;
# set_real_ip_from 172.16.0.0/12;
# set_real_ip_from 192.168.0.0/16;
# set_real_ip_from fc00::/7;
real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For;
real_ip_recursive on;

## Advanced Proxy Configuration
send_timeout 5m;
proxy_read_timeout 360;
proxy_send_timeout 360;
proxy_connect_timeout 360;

authelia-location.conf

The following snippet is used within the server block of a virtual host as a supporting endpoint used by auth_request and is paired with authelia-authrequest.conf.

set $upstream_authelia http://authelia:9091/api/verify;

## Virtual endpoint created by nginx to forward auth requests.
location /authelia {
    ## Essential Proxy Configuration
    internal;
    proxy_pass $upstream_authelia;

    ## Headers
    ## The headers starting with X-* are required.
    proxy_set_header X-Original-URL $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Method $request_method;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Uri $request_uri;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header Content-Length "";
    proxy_set_header Connection "";

    ## Basic Proxy Configuration
    proxy_pass_request_body off;
    proxy_next_upstream error timeout invalid_header http_500 http_502 http_503; # Timeout if the real server is dead
    proxy_redirect http:// $scheme://;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_cache_bypass $cookie_session;
    proxy_no_cache $cookie_session;
    proxy_buffers 4 32k;
    client_body_buffer_size 128k;

    ## Advanced Proxy Configuration
    send_timeout 5m;
    proxy_read_timeout 240;
    proxy_send_timeout 240;
    proxy_connect_timeout 240;
}

authelia-authrequest.conf

The following snippet is used within a location block of a virtual host which uses the appropriate location block and is paired with authelia-location.conf.

## Send a subrequest to Authelia to verify if the user is authenticated and has permission to access the resource.
auth_request /authelia;

## Set the $target_url variable based on the original request.
auth_request_set $target_url $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;

## Save the upstream response headers from Authelia to variables.
auth_request_set $user $upstream_http_remote_user;
auth_request_set $groups $upstream_http_remote_groups;
auth_request_set $name $upstream_http_remote_name;
auth_request_set $email $upstream_http_remote_email;

## Inject the response headers from the variables into the request made to the backend.
proxy_set_header Remote-User $user;
proxy_set_header Remote-Groups $groups;
proxy_set_header Remote-Name $name;
proxy_set_header Remote-Email $email;

## If the subreqest returns 200 pass to the backend, if the subrequest returns 401 redirect to the portal.
error_page 401 =302 https://auth.example.com/?rd=$target_url;

authelia-location-basic.conf

The following snippet is used within the server block of a virtual host as a supporting endpoint used by auth_request and is paired with authelia-authrequest-basic.conf. This particular snippet is rarely required. It's only used if you want to only allow HTTP Basic Authentication for a particular endpoint. It's recommended to use authelia-location.conf instead.

set $upstream_authelia http://authelia:9091/api/verify?auth=basic;

# Virtual endpoint created by nginx to forward auth requests.
location /authelia-basic {
    ## Essential Proxy Configuration
    internal;
    proxy_pass $upstream_authelia;

    ## Headers
    ## The headers starting with X-* are required.
    proxy_set_header X-Original-URL $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Method $request_method;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Uri $request_uri;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header Content-Length "";
    proxy_set_header Connection "";

    ## Basic Proxy Configuration
    proxy_pass_request_body off;
    proxy_next_upstream error timeout invalid_header http_500 http_502 http_503; # Timeout if the real server is dead
    proxy_redirect http:// $scheme://;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_cache_bypass $cookie_session;
    proxy_no_cache $cookie_session;
    proxy_buffers 4 32k;
    client_body_buffer_size 128k;

    ## Advanced Proxy Configuration
    send_timeout 5m;
    proxy_read_timeout 240;
    proxy_send_timeout 240;
    proxy_connect_timeout 240;
}

authelia-authrequest-basic.conf

The following snippet is used within a location block of a virtual host which uses the appropriate location block and is paired with authelia-location-basic.conf. This particular snippet is rarely required. It's only used if you want to only allow HTTP Basic Authentication for a particular endpoint. It's recommended to use authelia-authrequest.conf instead.

## Send a subrequest to Authelia to verify if the user is authenticated and has permission to access the resource.
auth_request /authelia-basic;

## Set the $target_url variable based on the original request.
auth_request_set $target_url $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;

## Save the upstream response headers from Authelia to variables.
auth_request_set $user $upstream_http_remote_user;
auth_request_set $groups $upstream_http_remote_groups;
auth_request_set $name $upstream_http_remote_name;
auth_request_set $email $upstream_http_remote_email;

## Inject the response headers from the variables into the request made to the backend.
proxy_set_header Remote-User $user;
proxy_set_header Remote-Groups $groups;
proxy_set_header Remote-Name $name;
proxy_set_header Remote-Email $email;

authelia-location-detect.conf

The following snippet is used within the server block of a virtual host as a supporting endpoint used by auth_request and is paired with authelia-authrequest-detect.conf. This particular snippet is rarely required. It's only used if you want to conditionally require HTTP Basic Authentication for a particular endpoint. It's recommended to use authelia-location.conf instead.

include /config/nginx/authelia-location.conf;

set $is_basic_auth ""; # false value

## Detect the client you want to force basic auth for here
## For the example we just match a path on the original request
if ($request_uri = "/force-basic") {
    set $is_basic_auth "true";
    set $upstream_authelia "$upstream_authelia?auth=basic";
}

## A new virtual endpoint to used if the auth_request failed
location  /authelia-detect {
    internal;

    if ($is_basic_auth) {
        ## This is a request where we decided to use basic auth, return a 401.
        ## Nginx will also proxy back the WWW-Authenticate header from Authelia's
        ## response. This is what informs the client we're expecting basic auth.
        return 401;
    }

    ## The original request didn't target /force-basic, redirect to the pretty login page
    ## This is what `error_page 401 =302 https://auth.example.com/?rd=$target_url;` did.
    return 302 https://auth.example.com/$is_args$args;
}

authelia-authrequest-detect.conf

The following snippet is used within a location block of a virtual host which uses the appropriate location block and is paired with authelia-location-detect.conf. This particular snippet is rarely required. It's only used if you want to conditionally require HTTP Basic Authentication for a particular endpoint. It's recommended to use authelia-authrequest.conf instead.

## Send a subrequest to Authelia to verify if the user is authenticated and has permission to access the resource.
auth_request /authelia;

## Set the $target_url variable based on the original request.
auth_request_set $target_url $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;

## Save the upstream response headers from Authelia to variables.
auth_request_set $user $upstream_http_remote_user;
auth_request_set $groups $upstream_http_remote_groups;
auth_request_set $name $upstream_http_remote_name;
auth_request_set $email $upstream_http_remote_email;

## Inject the response headers from the variables into the request made to the backend.
proxy_set_header Remote-User $user;
proxy_set_header Remote-Groups $groups;
proxy_set_header Remote-Name $name;
proxy_set_header Remote-Email $email;

## If the subreqest returns 200 pass to the backend, if the subrequest returns 401 redirect to the portal.
error_page 401 =302 /authelia-detect?rd=$target_url;

See Also

• NGINX ngx_http_auth_request_module Module Documentation
• NGINX ngx_http_realip_module Module Documentation
• Forwarded Headers