nginx-proxy/docs

Table of Contents

• Virtual Hosts and Ports
• Path-based Routing
• Docker Networking
• Upstream (Backend) features
• Basic Authentication Support
• Logging
• SSL Support
• IPv6 Support
• HTTP/2 and HTTP/3
• Headers
• Custom Nginx Configuration
• TCP and UDP stream
• Unhashed vs SHA1 upstream names
• Separate Containers
• Docker Compose
• Troubleshooting
• Contributing

Virtual Hosts and Ports

Multiple Hosts

If you need to support multiple virtual hosts for a container, you can separate each entry with commas. For example, foo.bar.com,baz.bar.com,bar.com and each host will be setup the same.

Wildcard Hosts

You can also use wildcards at the beginning and the end of host name, like *.bar.com or foo.bar.*. Or even a regular expression, which can be very useful in conjunction with a wildcard DNS service like nip.io or sslip.io, using ~^foo\.bar\..*\.nip\.io will match foo.bar.127.0.0.1.nip.io, foo.bar.10.0.2.2.nip.io and all other given IPs. More information about this topic can be found in the nginx documentation about server_names.

Default Host

To set the default host for nginx use the env var DEFAULT_HOST=foo.bar.com for example

docker run -d -p 80:80 -e DEFAULT_HOST=foo.bar.com -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro nginxproxy/nginx-proxy

nginx-proxy will then redirect all requests to a container where VIRTUAL_HOST is set to DEFAULT_HOST, if they don't match any (other) VIRTUAL_HOST. Using the example above requests without matching VIRTUAL_HOST will be redirected to a plain nginx instance after running the following command:

docker run -d -e VIRTUAL_HOST=foo.bar.com nginx

Virtual Ports

When your container exposes only one port, nginx-proxy will default to this port, else to port 80.

If you need to specify a different port, you can set a VIRTUAL_PORT env var to select a different one. This variable cannot be set to more than one port.

For each host defined into VIRTUAL_HOST, the associated virtual port is retrieved by order of precedence:

1. From the VIRTUAL_PORT environment variable
2. From the container's exposed port if there is only one
3. From the default port 80 when none of the above methods apply

Multiple ports

If your container expose more than one service on different ports and those services need to be proxied, you'll need to use the VIRTUAL_HOST_MULTIPORTS environment variable. This variable takes virtual host, path, port and dest definition in YAML (or JSON) form, and completely override the VIRTUAL_HOST, VIRTUAL_PORT, VIRTUAL_PROTO, VIRTUAL_PATH and VIRTUAL_DEST environment variables on this container.

The YAML syntax should be easier to write on Docker compose files, while the JSON syntax can be used for CLI invocation.

The expected format is the following:

hostname:
  path:
    port: int
    proto: string
    dest: string

For each hostname entry, path, port, proto and dest are optional and are assigned default values when missing:

• path = "/"
• port = default port
• proto = "http"
• dest = ""

Multiple ports routed to different hostnames

The following example use an hypothetical container running services over HTTP on port 80, 8000 and 9000:

services:
  multiport-container:
    image: somerepo/somecontainer
    container_name: multiport-container
    environment:
      VIRTUAL_HOST_MULTIPORTS: |-
        www.example.org:
        service1.example.org:
          "/":
            port: 8000
        service2.example.org:
          "/":
            port: 9000

# There is no path dict specified for www.example.org, so it get the default values:
# www.example.org:
#   "/":
#     port: 80 (default port)
#     dest: ""

# JSON equivalent:
#     VIRTUAL_HOST_MULTIPORTS: |-
#       {
#         "www.example.org": {},
#         "service1.example.org": { "/": { "port": 8000, "dest": "" } },
#         "service2.example.org": { "/": { "port": 9000, "dest": "" } }
#       }

This would result in the following proxy config:

• www.example.org -> multiport-container:80 over HTTP
• service1.example.org -> multiport-container:8000 over HTTP
• service2.example.org -> multiport-container:9000 over HTTP

Multiple ports routed to same hostname and different paths

The following example use an hypothetical container running services over HTTP on port 80 and 8000 and over HTTPS on port 9443:

services:
  multiport-container:
    image: somerepo/somecontainer
    container_name: multiport-container
    environment:
      VIRTUAL_HOST_MULTIPORTS: |-
        www.example.org:
          "/":
          "/service1":
            port: 8000
            dest: "/"
          "/service2":
            port: 9443
            proto: "https"
            dest: "/"

# port and dest are not specified on the / path, so this path is routed to the
# default port with the default dest value (empty string) and default proto (http)

# JSON equivalent:
#     VIRTUAL_HOST_MULTIPORTS: |-
#       {
#         "www.example.org": {
#           "/": {},
#           "/service1": { "port": 8000, "dest": "/" },
#           "/service2": { "port": 9443, "proto": "https", "dest": "/" }
#         }
#       }

This would result in the following proxy config:

• www.example.org -> multiport-container:80 over HTTP
• www.example.org/service1 -> multiport-container:8000 over HTTP
• www.example.org/service2 -> multiport-container:9443 over HTTPS

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Path-based Routing

You can have multiple containers proxied by the same VIRTUAL_HOST by adding a VIRTUAL_PATH environment variable containing the absolute path to where the container should be mounted. For example with VIRTUAL_HOST=foo.example.com and VIRTUAL_PATH=/api/v2/service, then requests to http://foo.example.com/api/v2/service will be routed to the container. If you wish to have a container serve the root while other containers serve other paths, give the root container a VIRTUAL_PATH of /. Unmatched paths will be served by the container at / or will return the default nginx error page if no container has been assigned /. It is also possible to specify multiple paths with regex locations like VIRTUAL_PATH=~^/(app1|alternative1)/. For further details see the nginx documentation on location blocks. This is not compatible with VIRTUAL_DEST.

The full request URI will be forwarded to the serving container in the X-Original-URI header.

[!NOTE] Your application needs to be able to generate links starting with VIRTUAL_PATH. This can be achieved by it being natively on this path or having an option to prepend this path. The application does not need to expect this path in the request.

VIRTUAL_DEST

This environment variable can be used to rewrite the VIRTUAL_PATH part of the requested URL to proxied application. The default value is empty (off). Make sure that your settings won't result in the slash missing or being doubled. Both these versions can cause troubles.

If the application runs natively on this sub-path or has a setting to do so, VIRTUAL_DEST should not be set or empty. If the requests are expected to not contain a sub-path and the generated links contain the sub-path, VIRTUAL_DEST=/ should be used.

$ docker run -d -e VIRTUAL_HOST=example.tld -e VIRTUAL_PATH=/app1/ -e VIRTUAL_DEST=/ --name app1 app

In this example, the incoming request http://example.tld/app1/foo will be proxied as http://app1/foo instead of http://app1/app1/foo.

Per-VIRTUAL_PATH location configuration

The same options as from Per-VIRTUAL_HOST location configuration are available on a VIRTUAL_PATH basis. The only difference is that the filename gets an additional block HASH=$(echo -n $VIRTUAL_PATH | sha1sum | awk '{ print $1 }'). This is the sha1-hash of the VIRTUAL_PATH (no newline). This is done for filename sanitization purposes.

The used filename is ${VIRTUAL_HOST}_${PATH_HASH}_location, or when VIRTUAL_HOST is a regex, ${VIRTUAL_HOST_HASH}_${PATH_HASH}_location.

The filename of the previous example would be example.tld_8610f6c344b4096614eab6e09d58885349f42faf_location.

DEFAULT_ROOT

This environment variable of the nginx proxy container can be used to customize the return error page if no matching path is found. Furthermore it is possible to use anything which is compatible with the return statement of nginx.

Exception: If this is set to the string none, no default location / directive will be generated. This makes it possible for you to provide your own location / directive in your /etc/nginx/vhost.d/VIRTUAL_HOST or /etc/nginx/vhost.d/default files.

If unspecified, DEFAULT_ROOT defaults to 404.

Examples (YAML syntax):

• DEFAULT_ROOT: "none" prevents nginx-proxy from generating a default location / directive.
• DEFAULT_ROOT: "418" returns a 418 error page instead of the normal 404 one.
• DEFAULT_ROOT: "301 https://github.com/nginx-proxy/nginx-proxy/blob/main/README.md" redirects the client to this documentation.

Nginx variables such as $scheme, $host, and $request_uri can be used. However, care must be taken to make sure the $ signs are escaped properly. For example, if you want to use 301 $scheme://$host/myapp1$request_uri you should use:

• Bash: DEFAULT_ROOT='301 $scheme://$host/myapp1$request_uri'
• Docker Compose yaml: - DEFAULT_ROOT: 301 $$scheme://$$host/myapp1$$request_uri

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Docker Networking

Custom external HTTP/HTTPS ports

If you want to use nginx-proxy with different external ports that the default ones of 80 for HTTP traffic and 443 for HTTPS traffic, you'll have to use the environment variable(s) HTTP_PORT and/or HTTPS_PORT in addition to the changes to the Docker port mapping. If you change the HTTPS port, the redirect for HTTPS traffic will also be configured to redirect to the custom port. Typical usage, here with the custom ports 1080 and 10443:

docker run -d -p 1080:1080 -p 10443:10443 -e HTTP_PORT=1080 -e HTTPS_PORT=10443 -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro nginxproxy/nginx-proxy

Multiple Networks

With the addition of overlay networking in Docker 1.9, your nginx-proxy container may need to connect to backend containers on multiple networks. By default, if you don't pass the --net flag when your nginx-proxy container is created, it will only be attached to the default bridge network. This means that it will not be able to connect to containers on networks other than bridge.

If you want your nginx-proxy container to be attached to a different network, you must pass the --net=my-network option in your docker create or docker run command. At the time of this writing, only a single network can be specified at container creation time. To attach to other networks, you can use the docker network connect command after your container is created:

docker run -d -p 80:80 -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \
    --name my-nginx-proxy --net my-network nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
docker network connect my-other-network my-nginx-proxy

In this example, the my-nginx-proxy container will be connected to my-network and my-other-network and will be able to proxy to other containers attached to those networks.

Host networking

nginx-proxy is compatible with containers using Docker's host networking, both with the proxy connected to one or more bridge network (default or user created) or running in host network mode itself.

Proxyed containers running in host network mode must use the VIRTUAL_PORT environment variable, as this is the only way for nginx-proxy to get the correct port (or a port at all) for those containers.

Internet vs. Local Network Access

If you allow traffic from the public internet to access your nginx-proxy container, you may want to restrict some containers to the internal network only, so they cannot be accessed from the public internet. On containers that should be restricted to the internal network, you should set the environment variable NETWORK_ACCESS=internal. By default, the internal network is defined as 127.0.0.0/8, 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16. To change the list of networks considered internal, mount a file on the nginx-proxy at /etc/nginx/network_internal.conf with these contents, edited to suit your needs:

# These networks are considered "internal"
allow 127.0.0.0/8;
allow 10.0.0.0/8;
allow 192.168.0.0/16;
allow 172.16.0.0/12;

# Traffic from all other networks will be rejected
deny all;

When internal-only access is enabled, external clients will be denied with an HTTP 403 Forbidden

[!NOTE] If there is a load-balancer / reverse proxy in front of nginx-proxy that hides the client IP (example: AWS Application/Elastic Load Balancer), you will need to use the nginx realip module (already installed) to extract the client's IP from the HTTP request headers. Please see the nginx realip module configuration for more details. This configuration can be added to a new config file and mounted in /etc/nginx/conf.d/.

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Upstream (Backend) features

SSL Upstream

If you would like the reverse proxy to connect to your backend using HTTPS instead of HTTP, set VIRTUAL_PROTO=https on the backend container.

[!NOTE] If you use VIRTUAL_PROTO=https and your backend container exposes port 80 and 443, nginx-proxy will use HTTPS on port 80. This is almost certainly not what you want, so you should also include VIRTUAL_PORT=443.

uWSGI Upstream

If you would like to connect to uWSGI backend, set VIRTUAL_PROTO=uwsgi on the backend container. Your backend container should then listen on a port rather than a socket and expose that port.

FastCGI Upstream

If you would like to connect to FastCGI backend, set VIRTUAL_PROTO=fastcgi on the backend container. Your backend container should then listen on a port rather than a socket and expose that port.

FastCGI File Root Directory

If you use fastcgi,you can set VIRTUAL_ROOT=xxx for your root directory

Upstream Server HTTP Load Balancing Support

If you have multiple containers with the same VIRTUAL_HOST and VIRTUAL_PATH settings, nginx will spread the load across all of them. To change the load balancing algorithm from nginx's default (round-robin), set the com.github.nginx-proxy.nginx-proxy.loadbalance label on one or more of your application containers to the desired load balancing directive. See the ngx_http_upstream_module documentation for available directives.

[!NOTE]

• Don't forget the terminating semicolon (;).
• If you are using Docker Compose, remember to escape any dollar sign ($) characters ($ becomes $$).

Docker Compose example:

services:
  nginx-proxy:
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
    environment:
      HTTPS_METHOD: nohttps

  myapp:
    image: jwilder/whoami
    expose:
      - "8000"
    environment:
      VIRTUAL_HOST: myapp.example
      VIRTUAL_PORT: "8000"
    labels:
      com.github.nginx-proxy.nginx-proxy.loadbalance: "hash $$remote_addr;"
    deploy:
      replicas: 4

Upstream Server HTTP Keep-Alive Support

By default nginx-proxy will enable HTTP keep-alive between itself and backend server(s) and set the maximum number of idle connections to twice the number of servers listed in the corresponding upstream{} block, per nginx recommendation. To manually set the maximum number of idle connections or disable HTTP keep-alive entirely, use the com.github.nginx-proxy.nginx-proxy.keepalive label on the server's container (setting it to disabled will disable HTTP keep-alive).

See the nginx keepalive documentation and the Docker label documentation for details.

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Basic Authentication Support

In order to be able to secure your virtual host, you have to create a file named as its equivalent VIRTUAL_HOST variable (or if using a regex VIRTUAL_HOST, as the sha1 hash of the regex) in directory /etc/nginx/htpasswd/{$VIRTUAL_HOST}

docker run -d -p 80:80 -p 443:443 \
    -v /path/to/htpasswd:/etc/nginx/htpasswd \
    -v /path/to/certs:/etc/nginx/certs \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \
    nginxproxy/nginx-proxy

If you want to define basic authentication for a VIRTUAL_PATH, you have to create a file named as /etc/nginx/htpasswd/${VIRTUAL_HOST}_${VIRTUAL_PATH_SHA1} (where $VIRTUAL_PATH_SHA1 is the SHA1 hash for the virtual path, you can use any SHA1 online generator to calculate it).

You'll need apache2-utils on the machine where you plan to create the htpasswd file. Follow these instructions

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Logging

The default nginx access log format is

$host $remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" $status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" "$http_user_agent" "$upstream_addr"

Custom log format

If you want to use a custom access log format, you can set LOG_FORMAT=xxx on the proxy container.

With docker compose take care to escape the $ character with $$ to avoid variable interpolation. Example: $remote_addr becomes $$remote_addr.

JSON log format

If you want access logs in JSON format, you can set LOG_JSON=true. This will correctly set the escape character to json and the log format to :

{
  "time_local": "$time_iso8601",
  "client_ip": "$http_x_forwarded_for",
  "remote_addr": "$remote_addr",
  "request": "$request",
  "status": "$status",
  "body_bytes_sent": "$body_bytes_sent",
  "request_time": "$request_time",
  "upstream_response_time": "$upstream_response_time",
  "upstream_addr": "$upstream_addr",
  "http_referrer": "$http_referer",
  "http_user_agent": "$http_user_agent",
  "request_id": "$request_id"
}

Log format escaping

If you want to manually set nginx log_format's escape, set the LOG_FORMAT_ESCAPE variable to a value supported by nginx.

Disable access logs

To disable nginx access logs entirely, set the DISABLE_ACCESS_LOGS environment variable to any value.

Disabling colors in the container log output

To remove colors from the container log output, set the NO_COLOR environment variable to any value other than an empty string on the nginx-proxy container.

docker run --detach \
  --publish 80:80 \
  --env NO_COLOR=1 \
  --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \
  nginxproxy/nginx-proxy

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SSL Support

SSL is supported using single host, wildcard and SAN certificates using naming conventions for certificates or optionally specifying a cert name as an environment variable.

To enable SSL:

docker run -d -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -v /path/to/certs:/etc/nginx/certs -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro nginxproxy/nginx-proxy

The contents of /path/to/certs should contain the certificates and private keys for any virtual hosts in use. The certificate and keys should be named after the virtual host with a .crt and .key extension. For example, a container with VIRTUAL_HOST=foo.bar.com should have a foo.bar.com.crt and foo.bar.com.key file in the certs directory.

If you are running the container in a virtualized environment (Hyper-V, VirtualBox, etc...), /path/to/certs must exist in that environment or be made accessible to that environment. By default, Docker is not able to mount directories on the host machine to containers running in a virtual machine.

SSL Support using an ACME CA

acme-companion is a lightweight companion container for the nginx-proxy. It allows the automated creation/renewal of SSL certificates using the ACME protocol.

By default nginx-proxy generates location blocks to handle ACME HTTP Challenge. This behavior can be changed with environment variable ACME_HTTP_CHALLENGE_LOCATION. It accepts these values:

• true: default behavior, handle ACME HTTP Challenge in all cases.
• false: do not handle ACME HTTP Challenge at all.
• legacy: legacy behavior for compatibility with older (<= 2.3) versions of acme-companion, only handle ACME HTTP challenge when there is a certificate for the domain and HTTPS_METHOD=redirect.

Diffie-Hellman Groups

RFC7919 groups with key lengths of 2048, 3072, and 4096 bits are provided by nginx-proxy. The ENV DHPARAM_BITS can be set to 2048 or 3072 to change from the default 4096-bit key. The DH key file will be located in the container at /etc/nginx/dhparam/dhparam.pem. Mounting a different dhparam.pem file at that location will override the RFC7919 key.

To use custom dhparam.pem files per-virtual-host, the files should be named after the virtual host with a dhparam suffix and .pem extension. For example, a container with VIRTUAL_HOST=foo.bar.com should have a foo.bar.com.dhparam.pem file in the /etc/nginx/certs directory.

[!WARNING] The default generated dhparam.pem key is 4096 bits for A+ security. Some older clients (like Java 6 and 7) do not support DH keys with over 1024 bits. In order to support these clients, you must provide your own dhparam.pem.

In the separate container setup, no pre-generated key will be available and neither the nginxproxy/docker-gen image, nor the offical nginx image will provide one. If you still want A+ security in a separate container setup, you should mount an RFC7919 DH key file to the nginx container at /etc/nginx/dhparam/dhparam.pem.

Set DHPARAM_SKIP environment variable to true to disable using default Diffie-Hellman parameters. The default value is false.

docker run -e DHPARAM_SKIP=true ....

Wildcard Certificates

Wildcard certificates and keys should be named after the parent domain name with a .crt and .key extension. For example:

• VIRTUAL_HOST=foo.bar.com would use cert name bar.com.crt and bar.com.key if foo.bar.com.crt and foo.bar.com.key are not available
• VIRTUAL_HOST=sub.foo.bar.com use cert name foo.bar.com.crt and foo.bar.com.key if sub.foo.bar.com.crt and sub.foo.bar.com.key are not available, but won't use bar.com.crt and bar.com.key.

SAN Certificates

If your certificate(s) supports multiple domain names, you can start a container with CERT_NAME=<name> to identify the certificate to be used. For example, a certificate for *.foo.com and *.bar.com could be named shared.crt and shared.key. A container running with VIRTUAL_HOST=foo.bar.com and CERT_NAME=shared will then use this shared cert.

OCSP Stapling

To enable OCSP Stapling for a domain, nginx-proxy looks for a PEM certificate containing the trusted CA certificate chain at /etc/nginx/certs/<domain>.chain.pem, where <domain> is the domain name in the VIRTUAL_HOST directive. The format of this file is a concatenation of the public PEM CA certificates starting with the intermediate CA most near the SSL certificate, down to the root CA. This is often referred to as the "SSL Certificate Chain". If found, this filename is passed to the NGINX ssl_trusted_certificate directive and OCSP Stapling is enabled.

How SSL Support Works

The default SSL cipher configuration is based on the Mozilla intermediate profile version 5.0 which should provide compatibility with clients back to Firefox 27, Android 4.4.2, Chrome 31, Edge, IE 11 on Windows 7, Java 8u31, OpenSSL 1.0.1, Opera 20, and Safari 9. Note that the DES-based TLS ciphers were removed for security. The configuration also enables HSTS, PFS, OCSP stapling and SSL session caches. Currently TLS 1.2 and 1.3 are supported.

If you don't require backward compatibility, you can use the Mozilla modern profile profile instead by including the environment variable SSL_POLICY=Mozilla-Modern to the nginx-proxy container or to your container. This profile is compatible with clients back to Firefox 63, Android 10.0, Chrome 70, Edge 75, Java 11, OpenSSL 1.1.1, Opera 57, and Safari 12.1.

[!NOTE] This profile is not compatible with any version of Internet Explorer.

Complete list of policies available through the SSL_POLICY environment variable, including the AWS ELB Security Policies and AWS Classic ELB security policies:

Mozilla policies

• Mozilla-Modern
• Mozilla-Intermediate
• Mozilla-Old (this policy should use a 1024 bits DH key for compatibility but this container provides a 4096 bits key. The Diffie-Hellman Groups section details different methods of bypassing this, either globally or per virtual-host.)

AWS ELB TLS 1.3 security policies

• AWS-TLS13-1-3-2021-06
• AWS-TLS13-1-2-2021-06
• AWS-TLS13-1-2-Res-2021-06
• AWS-TLS13-1-2-Ext1-2021-06
• AWS-TLS13-1-2-Ext2-2021-06
• AWS-TLS13-1-1-2021-06
• AWS-TLS13-1-0-2021-06

AWS ELB FS supported policies

• AWS-FS-1-2-Res-2020-10
• AWS-FS-1-2-Res-2019-08
• AWS-FS-1-2-2019-08
• AWS-FS-1-1-2019-08
• AWS-FS-2018-06

AWS ELB TLS 1.0 - 1.2 security policies

• AWS-TLS-1-2-Ext-2018-06
• AWS-TLS-1-2-2017-01
• AWS-TLS-1-1-2017-01
• AWS-2016-08

AWS Classic ELB security policies

• AWS-2015-05
• AWS-2015-03
• AWS-2015-02

The default behavior for the proxy when port 80 and 443 are exposed is as follows: - If a virtual host has a usable cert, port 80 will redirect to 443 for that virtual host so that HTTPS is always preferred when available. - If the virtual host does not have a usable cert, but `default.crt` and `default.key` exist, those will be used as the virtual host's certificate. - If the virtual host does not have a usable cert, and `default.crt` and `default.key` do not exist, or if the virtual host is configured not to trust the default certificate, SSL handshake will be rejected (see [Default and Missing Certificate](#default-and-missing-certificate) below). The redirection from HTTP to HTTPS use by default a [`301`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/301) response for every HTTP methods (except `CONNECT` and `TRACE` which are disabled on nginx). If you wish to use a custom redirection response for the `OPTIONS`, `POST`, `PUT`, `PATCH` and `DELETE` HTTP methods, you can either do it globally with the environment variable `NON_GET_REDIRECT` on the proxy container or per virtual host with the `com.github.nginx-proxy.nginx-proxy.non-get-redirect` label on proxied containers. Valid values are [`307`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/307) and [`308`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/308). To serve traffic in both SSL and non-SSL modes without redirecting to SSL, you can include the environment variable `HTTPS_METHOD=noredirect` (the default is `HTTPS_METHOD=redirect`). You can also disable the non-SSL site entirely with `HTTPS_METHOD=nohttp`, or disable the HTTPS site with `HTTPS_METHOD=nohttps`. `HTTPS_METHOD` can be specified on each container for which you want to override the default behavior or on the proxy container to set it globally. If `HTTPS_METHOD=noredirect` is used, Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is disabled to prevent HTTPS users from being redirected by the client. If you cannot get to the HTTP site after changing this setting, your browser has probably cached the HSTS policy and is automatically redirecting you back to HTTPS. You will need to clear your browser's HSTS cache or use an incognito window / different browser. By default, [HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Strict-Transport-Security) is enabled with `max-age=31536000` for HTTPS sites. You can disable HSTS with the environment variable `HSTS=off` or use a custom HSTS configuration like `HSTS=max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload`. > [!WARNING] > HSTS will force your users to visit the HTTPS version of your site for the max-age time - even if they type in http:// manually. The only way to get to an HTTP site after receiving an HSTS response is to clear your browser's HSTS cache. ### Default and Missing Certificate If no matching certificate is found for a given virtual host, nginx-proxy will configure nginx to use the default certificate (`default.crt` with `default.key`). If the default certificate is also missing, nginx-proxy will: - force enable HTTP; i.e. `HTTPS_METHOD` will switch to `noredirect` if it was set to `nohttp` or `redirect`. If this switch to HTTP is not wanted set `ENABLE_HTTP_ON_MISSING_CERT=false` (default is `true`). - configure nginx to reject the SSL handshake for this vhost. Client browsers will render a TLS error page. As of October 2024, web browsers display the following error messages: #### Chrome: > This site can’t be reached > > The web page at https://example.test/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address. > > `ERR_SSL_UNRECOGNIZED_NAME_ALERT` #### Firefox: > Secure Connection Failed > > An error occurred during a connection to example.test. SSL peer has no certificate for the requested DNS name. > > Error code: `SSL_ERROR_UNRECOGNIZED_NAME_ALERT` > > - The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified. > - Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem. #### Safari: > Safari Can't Open the Page > > Safari can't open the page "https://example.test" because Safari can't establish a secure connection to the server "example.test". > [!NOTE] > Prior to version `1.7`, nginx-proxy never trusted the default certificate: when the default certificate was present, virtual hosts that did not have a usable per-virtual-host cert used the default cert but always returned a 500 error over HTTPS. If you want to restore this behaviour, you can do it globally by setting the enviroment variable `TRUST_DEFAULT_CERT` to `false` on the proxy container, or per-virtual-host by setting the label `com.github.nginx-proxy.nginx-proxy.trust-default-cert`to `false` on a proxied container. ### Certificate selection Summarizing all the above informations, nginx-proxy will select the certificate for a given virtual host using the following sequence: 1. if `CERT_NAME` is used, nginx-proxy will use the corresponding certificate if it exists (eg `foor.bar.com` → `CERT_NAME.crt`), or disable HTTPS for this virtual host if it does not. See [SAN certificates](#san-certificates). 2. if a certificate exactly matching the virtual host hostname exist, nginx-proxy will use it (eg `foo.bar.com` → `foo.bar.com.crt`). 3. if the virtual host hostname is a subdomain (eg `foo.bar.com` but not `bar.com`) and a certificate exactly matching its parent domain exist , nginx-proxy will use it (eg `foor.bar.com` → `bar.com.crt`). See [wildcard certificates](#wildcard-certificates). 4. if the default certificate (`default.crt`) exist and is trusted, nginx-proxy will use it (eg `foor.bar.com` → `default.crt`). See [default and missing certificate](#default-and-missing-certificate). 5. if the default certificate does not exist or isn't trusted, nginx-proxy will disable HTTPS for this virtual host (eg `foor.bar.com` → no HTTPS). > [!IMPORTANT] > Using `CERT_NAME` take precedence over the certificate selection process, meaning nginx-proxy will not auto select a correct certificate in step 2 trough 5 if `CERT_NAME` was used with an incorrect value or without corresponding certificate. > [!NOTE] > In all the above cases, if a private key file corresponding to the selected certificate (eg `foo.bar.com.key` for the `foor.bar.com.crt` certificate) does not exist, HTTPS will be disabled for this virtual host. ⬆️ [back to table of contents](#table-of-contents) ## IPv6 Support ### IPv6 Docker Networks nginx-proxy support both IPv4 and IPv6 on Docker networks. By default nginx-proxy will prefer IPv4: if a container can be reached over both IPv4 and IPv6, only its IPv4 will be used. This can be changed globally by setting the environment variable `PREFER_IPV6_NETWORK` to `true` on the proxy container: with this setting the proxy will only use IPv6 for containers that can be reached over both IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 and IPv6 are never both used at the same time on containers that use both IP stacks to avoid artificially inflating the effective round robin weight of those containers. ### Listening on IPv6 By default the nginx-proxy container will only listen on IPv4. To enable listening on IPv6 too, set the `ENABLE_IPV6` environment variable to `true`: ```console docker run -d -p 80:80 -e ENABLE_IPV6=true -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro nginxproxy/nginx-proxy ``` ### Scoped IPv6 Resolvers Nginx does not support scoped IPv6 resolvers. In [docker-entrypoint.sh](https://github.com/nginx-proxy/nginx-proxy/blob/main/app/docker-entrypoint.sh) the resolvers are parsed from resolv.conf, but any scoped IPv6 addreses will be removed. ### IPv6 NAT By default, docker uses IPv6-to-IPv4 NAT. This means all client connections from IPv6 addresses will show docker's internal IPv4 host address. To see true IPv6 client IP addresses, you must [enable IPv6](https://docs.docker.com/config/daemon/ipv6/) and use [ipv6nat](https://github.com/robbertkl/docker-ipv6nat). You must also disable the userland proxy by adding `"userland-proxy": false` to `/etc/docker/daemon.json` and restarting the daemon. ⬆️ [back to table of contents](#table-of-contents) ## HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 ### HTTP/2 support HTTP/2 is enabled by default and can be disabled if necessary either per-proxied container or globally: To disable HTTP/2 for a single proxied container, set the `com.github.nginx-proxy.nginx-proxy.http2.enable` label to `false` on this container. To disable HTTP/2 globally set the environment variable `ENABLE_HTTP2` to `false` on the nginx-proxy container. More reading on the potential TCP head-of-line blocking issue with HTTP/2: [HTTP/2 Issues](https://www.twilio.com/blog/2017/10/http2-issues.html), [Comparing HTTP/3 vs HTTP/2](https://blog.cloudflare.com/http-3-vs-http-2/) ### HTTP/3 support > [!WARNING] > HTTP/3 support [is still considered experimental in nginx](https://www.nginx.com/blog/binary-packages-for-preview-nginx-quic-http3-implementation/) and as such is considered experimental in nginx-proxy too and is disabled by default. [Feedbacks for the HTTP/3 support are welcome in #2271.](https://github.com/nginx-proxy/nginx-proxy/discussions/2271) HTTP/3 use the QUIC protocol over UDP (unlike HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 which work over TCP), so if you want to use HTTP/3 you'll have to explicitely publish the 443/udp port of the proxy in addition to the 443/tcp port: ```console docker run -d -p 80:80 -p 443:443/tcp -p 443:443/udp \ -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \ nginxproxy/nginx-proxy ``` HTTP/3 can be enabled either per-proxied container or globally: To enable HTTP/3 for a single proxied container, set the `com.github.nginx-proxy.nginx-proxy.http3.enable` label to `true` on this container. To enable HTTP/3 globally set the environment variable `ENABLE_HTTP3` to `true` on the nginx-proxy container. ⬆️ [back to table of contents](#table-of-contents) ## Headers By default, `nginx-proxy` forwards all incoming request headers from the client to the backend server unmodified, with the following exceptions: - `Connection`: Set to `upgrade` if the client sets the `Upgrade` header, otherwise set to `close`. (Keep-alive between `nginx-proxy` and the backend server is not supported.) - `Proxy`: Always removed if present. This prevents attackers from using the so-called [httpoxy attack](http://httpoxy.org). There is no legitimate reason for a client to send this header, and there are many vulnerable languages / platforms (`CVE-2016-5385`, `CVE-2016-5386`, `CVE-2016-5387`, `CVE-2016-5388`, `CVE-2016-1000109`, `CVE-2016-1000110`, `CERT-VU#797896`). - `X-Real-IP`: Set to the client's IP address. - `X-Forwarded-For`: The client's IP address is appended to the value provided by the client. (If the client did not provide this header, it is set to the client's IP address.) - `X-Forwarded-Host`: If the client did not provide this header or if the `TRUST_DOWNSTREAM_PROXY` environment variable is set to `false` (see below), this is set to the value of the `Host` header provided by the client. Otherwise, the header is forwarded to the backend server unmodified. - `X-Forwarded-Proto`: If the client did not provide this header or if the `TRUST_DOWNSTREAM_PROXY` environment variable is set to `false` (see below), this is set to `http` for plain HTTP connections and `https` for TLS connections. Otherwise, the header is forwarded to the backend server unmodified. - `X-Forwarded-Ssl`: Set to `on` if the `X-Forwarded-Proto` header sent to the backend server is `https`, otherwise set to `off`. - `X-Forwarded-Port`: If the client did not provide this header or if the `TRUST_DOWNSTREAM_PROXY` environment variable is set to `false` (see below), this is set to the port of the server that accepted the client's request. Otherwise, the header is forwarded to the backend server unmodified. - `X-Original-URI`: Set to the original request URI. ### Trusting Downstream Proxy Headers For legacy compatibility reasons, `nginx-proxy` forwards any client-supplied `X-Forwarded-Proto` (which affects the value of `X-Forwarded-Ssl`), `X-Forwarded-Host`, and `X-Forwarded-Port` headers unchecked and unmodified. To prevent malicious clients from spoofing the protocol, hostname, or port that is perceived by your backend server, you are encouraged to set the `TRUST_DOWNSTREAM_PROXY` value to `false` if: - you do not operate a second reverse proxy downstream of `nginx-proxy`, or - you do operate a second reverse proxy downstream of `nginx-proxy` but that proxy forwards those headers unchecked from untrusted clients. The default for `TRUST_DOWNSTREAM_PROXY` may change to `false` in a future version of `nginx-proxy`. If you require it to be enabled, you are encouraged to explicitly set it to `true` to avoid compatibility problems when upgrading. ⬆️ [back to table of contents](#table-of-contents) ## Custom Nginx Configuration If you need to configure Nginx beyond what is possible using environment variables, you can provide custom configuration files on either a proxy-wide or per-`VIRTUAL_HOST` basis. ### Replacing default proxy settings If you want to replace the default proxy settings for the nginx container, add a configuration file at `/etc/nginx/proxy.conf`. A file with the default settings would look like this: ```nginx # HTTP 1.1 support proxy_http_version 1.1; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade; proxy_set_header Connection $proxy_connection; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $proxy_x_forwarded_host; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $proxy_x_forwarded_proto; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl $proxy_x_forwarded_ssl; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port $proxy_x_forwarded_port; proxy_set_header X-Original-URI $request_uri; # Mitigate httpoxy attack (see README for details) proxy_set_header Proxy ""; ``` > [!IMPORTANT] > If you provide this file it will replace the defaults; you may want to check the [nginx.tmpl](https://github.com/nginx-proxy/nginx-proxy/blob/main/nginx.tmpl) file to make sure you have all of the needed options. ### Proxy-wide To add settings on a proxy-wide basis, add your configuration file under `/etc/nginx/conf.d` using a name ending in `.conf`. This can be done in a derived image by creating the file in a `RUN` command or by `COPY`ing the file into `conf.d`: ```Dockerfile FROM nginxproxy/nginx-proxy RUN { \ echo 'server_tokens off;'; \ echo 'client_max_body_size 100m;'; \ } > /etc/nginx/conf.d/my_proxy.conf ``` Or it can be done by mounting in your custom configuration in your `docker run` command or your Docker Compose file: ```nginx # content of the my_proxy.conf file server_tokens off; client_max_body_size 100m; ```

Docker CLI

```console docker run --detach \ --name nginx-proxy \ --publish 80:80 \ --publish 443:443 \ --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \ --volume /path/to/my_proxy.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/my_proxy.conf:ro \ nginxproxy/nginx-proxy ```

Docker Compose file

```yaml services: proxy: image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy container_name: nginx-proxy ports: - "80:80" - "443:443" volumes: - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro - /path/to/my_proxy.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/my_proxy.conf:ro ```

[!NOTE] The filenames of extra configuration files affect the order in which configuration is applied. nginx reads configuration from /etc/nginx/conf.d directory in alphabetical order. Note that the configuration managed by nginx-proxy is placed at /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf.

Per-VIRTUAL_HOST

To add settings on a per-VIRTUAL_HOST basis, add your configuration file under /etc/nginx/vhost.d. Unlike in the proxy-wide case, which allows multiple config files with any name ending in .conf, the per-VIRTUAL_HOST file must be named exactly after the VIRTUAL_HOST, or if VIRTUAL_HOST is a regex, after the sha1 hash of the regex.

In order to allow virtual hosts to be dynamically configured as backends are added and removed, it makes the most sense to mount an external directory as /etc/nginx/vhost.d as opposed to using derived images or mounting individual configuration files.

For example, if you have a virtual host named app.example.com, you could provide a custom configuration for that host as follows:

1. create your virtual host config file:

   # content of the custom-vhost-config.conf file
   client_max_body_size 100m;
   

2. mount it to /etc/nginx/vhost.d/app.example.com:

   Docker CLI

   docker run --detach \
   --name nginx-proxy \
   --publish 80:80 \
   --publish 443:443 \
   --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \
   --volume /path/to/custom-vhost-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/app.example.com:ro \
   nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
   

Docker Compose file

```yaml services: proxy: image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy container_name: nginx-proxy ports: - "80:80" - "443:443" volumes: - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro - /path/to/custom-vhost-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/app.example.com:ro ```

If you are using multiple hostnames for a single container (e.g. VIRTUAL_HOST=example.com,www.example.com), the virtual host configuration file must exist for each hostname:

Docker CLI

```console docker run --detach \ --name nginx-proxy \ --publish 80:80 \ --publish 443:443 \ --volume /path/to/custom-vhost-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/example.com:ro \ --volume /path/to/custom-vhost-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/www.example.com:ro \ --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \ nginxproxy/nginx-proxy ```

Docker Compose file

```yaml services: proxy: image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy container_name: nginx-proxy ports: - "80:80" - "443:443" volumes: - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro - /path/to/custom-vhost-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/example.com:ro - /path/to/custom-vhost-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/www.example.com:ro ```

Per-VIRTUAL_HOST default configuration

If you want most of your virtual hosts to use a default single configuration and then override on a few specific ones, add those settings to the /etc/nginx/vhost.d/default file. This file will be used on any virtual host which does not have a per-VIRTUAL_HOST file associated with it.

Per-VIRTUAL_HOST location configuration

To add settings to the "location" block on a per-VIRTUAL_HOST basis, add your configuration file under /etc/nginx/vhost.d just like the per-VIRTUAL_HOST section except with the suffix _location (like this section, if your VIRTUAl_HOST is a regex, use the sha1 hash of the regex instead, with the suffix _location appended).

For example, if you have a virtual host named app.example.com and you have configured a proxy_cache my-cache in another custom file, you could tell it to use a proxy cache as follows:

1. create your virtual host location config file:

   # content of the custom-vhost-location-config.conf file
   proxy_cache my-cache;
   proxy_cache_valid 200 302 60m;
   proxy_cache_valid 404 1m;
   

2. mount it to /etc/nginx/vhost.d/app.example.com_location:

Docker CLI

```console docker run --detach \ --name nginx-proxy \ --publish 80:80 \ --publish 443:443 \ --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \ --volume /path/to/custom-vhost-location-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/app.example.com_location:ro \ nginxproxy/nginx-proxy ```

Docker Compose file

```yaml services: proxy: image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy container_name: nginx-proxy ports: - "80:80" - "443:443" volumes: - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro - /path/to/custom-vhost-location-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/app.example.com_location:ro ```

If you are using multiple hostnames for a single container (e.g. VIRTUAL_HOST=example.com,www.example.com), the virtual host configuration file must exist for each hostname:

Docker CLI

```console docker run --detach \ --name nginx-proxy \ --publish 80:80 \ --publish 443:443 \ --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \ --volume /path/to/custom-vhost-location-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/example.com_location:ro \ --volume /path/to/custom-vhost-location-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/www.example.com_location:ro \ nginxproxy/nginx-proxy ```

Docker Compose file

```yaml services: proxy: image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy container_name: nginx-proxy ports: - "80:80" - "443:443" volumes: - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro - /path/to/custom-vhost-location-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/example.com_location:ro - /path/to/custom-vhost-location-config.conf:/etc/nginx/vhost.d/www.example.com_location:ro ```

Per-VIRTUAL_HOST location default configuration

If you want most of your virtual hosts to use a default single location block configuration and then override on a few specific ones, add those settings to the /etc/nginx/vhost.d/default_location file. This file will be used on any virtual host which does not have a Per-VIRTUAL_HOST location file associated with it.

Overriding location blocks

The ${VIRTUAL_HOST}_${PATH_HASH}_location, ${VIRTUAL_HOST}_location, and default_location files documented above make it possible to augment the generated location block(s) in a virtual host. In some circumstances, you may need to completely override the location block for a particular combination of virtual host and path. To do this, create a file whose name follows this pattern:

/etc/nginx/vhost.d/${VIRTUAL_HOST}_${PATH_HASH}_location_override

where ${VIRTUAL_HOST} is the name of the virtual host (the VIRTUAL_HOST environment variable), or the sha1 hash of VIRTUAL_HOST when it's a regex, and ${PATH_HASH} is the SHA-1 hash of the path, as described above.

For convenience, the _${PATH_HASH} part can be omitted if the path is /:

/etc/nginx/vhost.d/${VIRTUAL_HOST}_location_override

When an override file exists, the location block that is normally created by nginx-proxy is not generated. Instead, the override file is included via the nginx include directive.

You are responsible for providing a suitable location block in your override file as required for your service. By default, nginx-proxy uses the VIRTUAL_HOST name as the upstream name for your application's Docker container; see here for details. As an example, if your container has a VIRTUAL_HOST value of app.example.com, then to override the location block for / you would create a file named /etc/nginx/vhost.d/app.example.com_location_override that contains something like this:

location / {
    proxy_pass http://app.example.com;
}

Per-VIRTUAL_HOST server_tokens configuration

Per virtual-host servers_tokens directive can be configured by passing appropriate value to the SERVER_TOKENS environment variable. Please see the nginx http_core module configuration for more details.

Custom error page

To override the default error page displayed on 50x errors, mount your custom HTML error page inside the container at /usr/share/nginx/html/errors/50x.html:

docker run --detach \
    --name nginx-proxy \
    --publish 80:80 \
    --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \
    --volume /path/to/error.html:/usr/share/nginx/html/errors/50x.html:ro \
    nginxproxy/nginx-proxy

[!NOTE] This will not replace your own services error pages.

⬆️ back to table of contents

TCP and UDP stream

If you want to proxy non-HTTP traffic, you can use nginx's stream module. Write a configuration file and mount it inside /etc/nginx/toplevel.conf.d.

# stream.conf
stream {
    upstream stream_backend {
        server backend1.example.com:12345;
        server backend2.example.com:12345;
        server backend3.example.com:12346;
        # ...
    }
    server {
        listen     12345;
        #TCP traffic will be forwarded to the "stream_backend" upstream group
        proxy_pass stream_backend;
    }

    server {
        listen     12346;
        #TCP traffic will be forwarded to the specified server
        proxy_pass backend.example.com:12346;
    }

    upstream dns_servers {
        server 192.168.136.130:53;
        server 192.168.136.131:53;
        # ...
    }
    server {
        listen     53 udp;
        #UDP traffic will be forwarded to the "dns_servers" upstream group
        proxy_pass dns_servers;
    }
    # ...
}

docker run --detach \
    --name nginx-proxy \
    --publish 80:80 \
    --publish 12345:12345 \
    --publish 12346:12346 \
    --publish 53:53:udp \
    --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \
    --volume ./stream.conf:/etc/nginx/toplevel.conf.d/stream.conf:ro \
    nginxproxy/nginx-proxy

[!NOTE] TCP and UDP stream are not core features of nginx-proxy, so the above is provided as an example only, without any guarantee.

⬆️ back to table of contents

Unhashed vs SHA1 upstream names

By default the nginx configuration upstream blocks will use this block's corresponding hostname as a predictable name. However, this can cause issues in some setups (see this issue). In those cases you might want to switch to SHA1 names for the upstream blocks by setting the SHA1_UPSTREAM_NAME environment variable to true on the nginx-proxy container.

[!NOTE] Using regular expressions in VIRTUAL_HOST will always result in a corresponding upstream block with an SHA1 name.

⬆️ back to table of contents

Separate Containers

nginx-proxy can also be run as two separate containers using the nginxproxy/docker-gen image and the official nginx image.

You may want to do this to prevent having the docker socket bound to a publicly exposed container service.

You can demo this pattern with docker compose:

docker compose --file docker-compose-separate-containers.yml up
curl -H "Host: whoami.example" localhost

Example output:

I'm 5b129ab83266

To run nginx proxy as a separate container you'll need to have nginx.tmpl on your host system.

First start nginx with a volume:

docker run -d -p 80:80 --name nginx -v /tmp/nginx:/etc/nginx/conf.d -t nginx

Then start the docker-gen container with the shared volume and template:

docker run --volumes-from nginx \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro \
    -v $(pwd):/etc/docker-gen/templates \
    -t nginxproxy/docker-gen -notify-sighup nginx -watch /etc/docker-gen/templates/nginx.tmpl /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

Finally, start your containers with VIRTUAL_HOST environment variables.

docker run -e VIRTUAL_HOST=foo.bar.com  ...

⬆️ back to table of contents

Docker Compose

services:
  nginx-proxy:
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro

  whoami:
    image: jwilder/whoami
    expose:
      - "8000"
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=whoami.example
      - VIRTUAL_PORT=8000

docker compose up
curl -H "Host: whoami.example" localhost

Example output:

I'm 5b129ab83266

⬆️ back to table of contents

Troubleshooting

If you can't access your VIRTUAL_HOST, inspect the generated nginx configuration:

docker exec <nginx-proxy-instance> nginx -T

Pay attention to the upstream definition blocks, which should look like this:

# foo.example.com
upstream foo.example.com {
	## Can be connected with "my_network" network
	# Exposed ports: [{   <exposed_port1>  tcp } {   <exposed_port2>  tcp } ...]
	# Default virtual port: <exposed_port|80>
	# VIRTUAL_PORT: <VIRTUAL_PORT>
	# foo
	server 172.18.0.9:<Port>;
	# Fallback entry
	server 127.0.0.1 down;
}

The effective Port is retrieved by order of precedence:

1. From the VIRTUAL_PORT environment variable
2. From the container's exposed port if there is only one
3. From the default port 80 when none of the above methods apply

Debug endpoint

The debug endpoint can be enabled:

• globally by setting the DEBUG_ENDPOINT environment variable to true on the nginx-proxy container.
• per container by setting the com.github.nginx-proxy.nginx-proxy.debug-endpoint label to true on a proxied container.

Enabling it will expose the endpoint at <your.domain.tld>/nginx-proxy-debug.

Querying the debug endpoint will show the global config, along with the virtual host and per path configs in JSON format.

services:
  nginx-proxy:
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
    environment:
      DEBUG_ENDPOINT: "true"

  test:
    image: nginx
    environment:
      VIRTUAL_HOST: test.nginx-proxy.tld

(on the CLI, using jq to format the output of curl is recommended)

curl -s -H "Host: test.nginx-proxy.tld" localhost/nginx-proxy-debug | jq

{
  "global": {
    "acme_http_challenge": "true",
    "default_cert_ok": false,
    "default_host": null,
    "default_root_response": "404",
    "enable_access_log": true,
    "enable_debug_endpoint": "true",
    "enable_http2": "true",
    "enable_http3": "false",
    "enable_http_on_missing_cert": "true",
    "enable_ipv6": false,
    "enable_json_logs": false,
    "external_http_port": "80",
    "external_https_port": "443",
    "hsts": "max-age=31536000",
    "https_method": "redirect",
    "log_format": null,
    "log_format_escape": null,
    "nginx_proxy_version": "1.7.0",
    "resolvers": "127.0.0.11",
    "sha1_upstream_name": false,
    "ssl_policy": "Mozilla-Intermediate",
    "trust_downstream_proxy": true
  },
  "request": {
    "host": "test.nginx-proxy.tld",
    "http2": "",
    "http3": "",
    "https": "",
    "ssl_cipher": "",
    "ssl_protocol": ""
  },
  "vhost": {
    "acme_http_challenge_enabled": true,
    "acme_http_challenge_legacy": false,
    "cert": "",
    "cert_ok": false,
    "default": false,
    "enable_debug_endpoint": true,
    "hostname": "test.nginx-proxy.tld",
    "hsts": "max-age=31536000",
    "http2_enabled": true,
    "http3_enabled": false,
    "https_method": "noredirect",
    "is_regexp": false,
    "paths": {
      "/": {
        "dest": "",
        "keepalive": "disabled",
        "network_tag": "external",
        "ports": {
          "legacy": [
            {
              "Name": "wip-test-1"
            }
          ]
        },
        "proto": "http",
        "upstream": "test.nginx-proxy.tld"
      }
    },
    "server_tokens": "",
    "ssl_policy": "",
    "upstream_name": "test.nginx-proxy.tld",
    "vhost_root": "/var/www/public"
  }
}

[!WARNING] Please be aware that the debug endpoint work by rendering the JSON response straight to the nginx configuration in plaintext. nginx has an upper limit on the size of the configuration files it can parse, so only activate it when needed, and preferably on a per container basis if your setup has a large number of virtual hosts.

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Contributing

Before submitting pull requests or issues, please check github to make sure an existing issue or pull request is not already open.

Running Tests Locally

To run tests, you just need to run the command below:

make test

This commands run tests on two variants of the nginx-proxy docker image: Debian and Alpine.

You can run the tests for each of these images with their respective commands:

make test-debian
make test-alpine

You can learn more about how the test suite works and how to write new tests in the test/README.md file.

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