Authelia Get started

NGINX

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
  • NGINX must be built with the http_set_misc module or the nginx-mod-http-set-misc package if you want to use the legacy method and preserve more than one query parameter when redirected to the portal due to a limitation in NGINX

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.

Assumptions and Adaptation

This guide makes a few assumptions. These assumptions may require adaptation in more advanced and complex scenarios. We can not reasonably have examples for every advanced configuration option that exists. Some of these values can automatically be replaced with documentation variables.

The following are the assumptions we make:

  • Deployment Scenario:
    • Single Host
    • Authelia is deployed as a Container with the container name authelia on port 9091
    • Proxy is deployed as a Container on a network shared with Authelia
  • The above assumption means that Authelia should be accessible to the proxy on http://authelia:9091 and as such:
    • You will have to adapt all instances of the above URL to be https:// if Authelia configuration has a TLS key and certificate defined
    • You will have to adapt all instances of authelia in the URL if:
      • you’re using a different container name
      • you deployed the proxy to a different location
    • You will have to adapt all instances of 9091 in the URL if:
      • you have adjusted the default port in the configuration
    • You will have to adapt the entire URL if:
      • Authelia is on a different host to the proxy
  • All services are part of the example.com domain:
    • This domain and the subdomains will have to be adapted in all examples to match your specific domains unless you’re just testing or you want to use that specific domain

Implementation

NGINX utilizes the AuthRequest Authz implementation. The associated Metadata should be considered required.

The examples below assume you are using the default Authz Endpoints Configuration or one similar to the following minimal configuration:

configuration.yml 
server:
  endpoints:
    authz:
      auth-request:
        implementation: 'AuthRequest'

The examples below also assume you are using the modern Session Configuration which includes the domain, authelia_url, and default_redirection_url as a subkey of the session.cookies key as a list item. Below is an example of the modern configuration as well as the legacy configuration for context.

configuration.yml 
session:
  cookies:
    - domain: 'example.com'
      authelia_url: 'https://auth.example.com'
      default_redirection_url: 'https://www.example.com'
configuration.yml 
default_redirection_url: 'https://www.example.com'
session:
  domain: 'example.com'

Docker Compose

The following docker compose example has various applications suitable for setting up an example environment.

It uses the nginx image from linuxserver.io which includes all of the required modules including the http_set_misc module.

It also includes the nginx-proxy-confs mod where they have several configuration examples in the /config/nginx/proxy-confs directory. This can be omitted if desired.

If you’re looking for a more complete solution linuxserver.io also have an nginx container called SWAG which includes ACME and various other useful utilities.

docker-compose.yml 
---
networks:
  net:
    driver: bridge

services:
  nginx:
    container_name: nginx
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/nginx
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      net:
        aliases: []
    ports:
      - '80:80'
      - '443:443'
    volumes:
      - '${PWD}/data/nginx/snippets:/config/nginx/snippets'
      - '${PWD}/data/nginx/site-confs:/config/nginx/site-confs'
    environment:
      TZ: 'Australia/Melbourne'
      DOCKER_MODS: 'linuxserver/mods:nginx-proxy-confs'
  authelia:
    container_name: 'authelia'
    image: authelia/authelia
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      net:
        aliases: []
    expose:
      - 9091
    volumes:
      - ${PWD}/data/authelia/config:/config
    environment:
      TZ: 'Australia/Melbourne'
  nextcloud:
    container_name: nextcloud
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/nextcloud
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      net:
        aliases: []
    expose:
      - 443
    volumes:
      - ${PWD}/data/nextcloud/config:/config
      - ${PWD}/data/nextcloud/data:/data
    environment:
      PUID: '1000'
      PGID: '1000'
      TZ: 'Australia/Melbourne'
  whoami:
    container_name: whoami
    image: docker.io/traefik/whoami
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      net:
        aliases: []
    expose:
      - 80
    environment:
      TZ: 'Australia/Melbourne'
...

Configuration

Below you will find commented examples of the following configuration:

Assumptions

  • Authelia is accessible to NGINX process with the hostname authelia on port 9091 making the URL http://authelia:9091. If this is not the case adjust all instances of this as appropriate.
  • The NGINX configuration is in the folder /config/nginx. If this is not the case adjust all instances of this as appropriate.
  • The URL you wish Authelia to be accessible on is https://auth.example.com. If this is not the case adjust all instances of this as appropriate.

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/snippets/ directory. The /config/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf snippet is expected to have the configuration for TLS or SSL but is not included as part of the examples.

The directive include /config/nginx/snippets/authelia-authrequest.conf; within the location block is what directs NGINX to perform authorization with Authelia. Every location block you wish for Authelia to perform authorization for should include this directive.

site-confs/auth.conf 
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name auth.*;

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

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name auth.*;

    include /config/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf;

    set $upstream http://authelia:9091;

    location / {
        include /config/nginx/snippets/proxy.conf;
        proxy_pass $upstream;
    }

    location = /api/verify {
        proxy_pass $upstream;
    }

    location /api/authz/ {
        proxy_pass $upstream;
    }
}
site-confs/nextcloud.conf 
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name nextcloud.*;

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

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name nextcloud.*;

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

    set $upstream http://nextcloud;

    location / {
        include /config/nginx/snippets/proxy.conf;
        include /config/nginx/snippets/authelia-authrequest.conf;
        proxy_pass $upstream;
    }
}
site-confs/whoami.conf 
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name whoami.*;

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

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name whoami.*;

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

    set $upstream http://whoami;

    location / {
        include /config/nginx/snippets/proxy.conf;
        include /config/nginx/snippets/authelia-authrequest.conf;
        proxy_pass $upstream;
    }
}

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/snippets/ directory. The /config/nginx/snippets/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 file from the Standard Example configuration can be reused for this example as such it isn’t repeated.

site-confs/nextcloud.conf 
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name nextcloud.*;

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

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name nextcloud.*;

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

    set $upstream https://nextcloud;

    location / {
        include /config/nginx/snippets/proxy.conf;
        include /config/nginx/snippets/authelia-authrequest-basic.conf;
        proxy_pass $upstream;
    }
}

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.

Standard Variant

Generally this variant is the suggested variant.

proxy.conf 
## Headers
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Original-URL $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;
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;

## 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;
Headers Only Variant

Generally the standard variant is the suggested variant. This variant only contains the required headers for Authelia to operate.

proxy.conf 
## Headers
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Original-URL $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;
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;

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.

authelia-location.conf 
set $upstream_authelia http://authelia:9091/api/authz/auth-request;

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

    ## Headers
    ## The headers starting with X-* are required.
    proxy_set_header X-Original-Method $request_method;
    proxy_set_header X-Original-URL $scheme://$http_host$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.

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

## Save the upstream metadata 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 metadata 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-Email $email;
proxy_set_header Remote-Name $name;

## Configure the redirection when the authz failure occurs. Lines starting with 'Modern Method' and 'Legacy Method'
## should be commented / uncommented as pairs. The modern method uses the session cookies configuration's authelia_url
## value to determine the redirection URL here. It's much simpler and compatible with the mutli-cookie domain easily.

## Modern Method: Set the $redirection_url to the Location header of the response to the Authz endpoint.
auth_request_set $redirection_url $upstream_http_location;

## Modern Method: When there is a 401 response code from the authz endpoint redirect to the $redirection_url.
error_page 401 =302 $redirection_url;

## Legacy Method: Set $target_url to the original requested URL.
## This requires http_set_misc module, replace 'set_escape_uri' with 'set' if you don't have this module.
# set_escape_uri $target_url $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;

## Legacy Method: When there is a 401 response code from the authz endpoint redirect to the portal with the 'rd'
## URL parameter set to $target_url. This requires users update 'auth.example.com/' with their external authelia URL.
# error_page 401 =302 https://auth.example.com/?rd=$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.

Note

This example assumes you configured an authz endpoint with the name auth-request/basic and the implementation AuthRequest which contains the HeaderAuthorization and HeaderProxyAuthorization strategies.

authelia-location-basic.conf 
set $upstream_authelia http://authelia:9091/api/authz/auth-request/basic;

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

    ## Headers
    ## The headers starting with X-* are required.
    proxy_set_header X-Original-Method $request_method;
    proxy_set_header X-Original-URL $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;
    proxy_set_header X-Original-Method $request_method;
    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.

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

## 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.

authelia-location-detect.conf 
include /config/nginx/snippets/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  /internal/authelia/authz/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;
    }

    ## IMPORTANT: The below URL `https://auth.example.com/` MUST be replaced with the externally accessible URL of the
    ## Authelia Portal/Site.
    ##
    ## 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.

authelia-authrequest-detect.conf 
## Send a subrequest to Authelia to verify if the user is authenticated and has permission to access the resource.
auth_request /internal/authelia/authz;

## Comment this line if you're using nginx without the http_set_misc module.
set_escape_uri $target_url $scheme://$http_host$request_uri;

## Uncomment this line if you're using NGINX without the http_set_misc module.
# 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 /internal/authelia/authz/detect?rd=$target_url;

See Also

Last updated on September 1, 2024
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