Nginx

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;
}

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}

And set sane ciphers.

Sane Ciphers

Suggestion from 22.5.2015 by weakdh.org:

ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA';

ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

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;