nghttpx - HTTP/2 proxy - HOW-TO¶
nghttpx is a proxy translating protocols between HTTP/2 and other protocols (e.g., HTTP/1, SPDY). It operates in several modes and each mode may require additional programs to work with. This article describes each operation mode and explains the intended use-cases. It also covers some useful options later.
Default mode¶
If nghttpx is invoked without any -s
, -p
and --client
, it
operates in default mode. In this mode, nghttpx frontend listens for
HTTP/2 requests and translates them to HTTP/1 requests. Thus it works
as reverse proxy (gateway) for HTTP/2 clients to HTTP/1 web server.
HTTP/1 requests are also supported in frontend as a fallback. If
nghttpx is linked with spdylay library and frontend connection is
SSL/TLS, the frontend also supports SPDY protocol.
By default, this mode's frontend connection is encrypted using SSL/TLS. So server's private key and certificate must be supplied to the command line (or through configuration file). In this case, the frontend protocol selection will be done via ALPN or NPN.
With --frontend-no-tls
option, user can turn off SSL/TLS in
frontend connection. In this case, SPDY protocol is not available
even if spdylay library is liked to nghttpx. HTTP/2 and HTTP/1 are
available on the frontend and a HTTP/1 connection can be upgraded to
HTTP/2 using HTTP Upgrade. Starting HTTP/2 connection by sending
HTTP/2 connection preface is also supported.
The backend is supposed to be HTTP/1 Web server. For example, to make nghttpx listen to encrypted HTTP/2 requests at port 8443, and a backend HTTP/1 web server is configured to listen to HTTP/1 request at port 8080 in the same host, run nghttpx command-line like this:
$ nghttpx -f0.0.0.0,8443 -b127.0.0.1,8080 /path/to/server.key /path/to/server.crt
Then HTTP/2 enabled client can access to the nghttpx in HTTP/2. For example, you can send GET request to the server using nghttp:
$ nghttp -nv https://localhost:8443/
HTTP/2 proxy mode¶
If nghttpx is invoked with -s
option, it operates in HTTP/2 proxy
mode. The supported protocols in frontend and backend connections are
the same in default mode. The difference is that this mode acts
like forward proxy and assumes the backend is HTTP/1 proxy server
(e.g., squid, traffic server). So HTTP/1 request must include
absolute URI in request line.
By default, frontend connection is encrypted. So this mode is also called secure proxy. If nghttpx is linked with spdylay, it supports SPDY protocols and it works as so called SPDY proxy.
With --frontend-no-tls
option, SSL/TLS is turned off in frontend
connection, so the connection gets insecure.
The backend must be HTTP/1 proxy server. nghttpx supports multiple backend server addresses. It translates incoming requests to HTTP/1 request to backend server. The backend server performs real proxy work for each request, for example, dispatching requests to the origin server and caching contents.
For example, to make nghttpx listen to encrypted HTTP/2 requests at port 8443, and a backend HTTP/1 proxy server is configured to listen to HTTP/1 request at port 8080 in the same host, run nghttpx command-line like this:
$ nghttpx -s -f'*,8443' -b127.0.0.1,8080 /path/to/server.key /path/to/server.crt
At the time of this writing, Firefox 41 and Chromium v46 can use nghttpx as HTTP/2 proxy.
To make Firefox or Chromium use nghttpx as HTTP/2 or SPDY proxy, user has to create proxy.pac script file like this:
function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
return "HTTPS SERVERADDR:PORT";
}
SERVERADDR
and PORT
is the hostname/address and port of the
machine nghttpx is running. Please note that both Firefox and
Chromium require valid certificate for secure proxy.
For Firefox, open Preference window and select Advanced then click Network tab. Clicking Connection Settings button will show the dialog. Select "Automatic proxy configuration URL" and enter the path to proxy.pac file, something like this:
file:///path/to/proxy.pac
For Chromium, use following command-line:
$ google-chrome --proxy-pac-url=file:///path/to/proxy.pac --use-npn
As HTTP/1 proxy server, Squid may work as out-of-box. Traffic server requires to be configured as forward proxy. Here is the minimum configuration items to edit:
CONFIG proxy.config.reverse_proxy.enabled INT 0
CONFIG proxy.config.url_remap.remap_required INT 0
Consult Traffic server documentation to know how to configure traffic server as forward proxy and its security implications.
Client mode¶
If nghttpx is invoked with --client
option, it operates in client
mode. In this mode, nghttpx listens for plain, unencrypted HTTP/2 and
HTTP/1 requests and translates them to encrypted HTTP/2 requests to
the backend. User cannot enable SSL/TLS in frontend connection.
HTTP/1 frontend connection can be upgraded to HTTP/2 using HTTP
Upgrade. To disable SSL/TLS in backend connection, use
--backend-no-tls
option.
By default, the number of backend HTTP/2 connections per worker
(thread) is determined by number of -b
option. To adjust this
value, use --backend-http2-connections-per-worker
option.
The backend server is supporsed to be a HTTP/2 web server (e.g., nghttpd). The one use-case of this mode is utilize existing HTTP/1 clients to test HTTP/2 deployment. Suppose that HTTP/2 web server listens to port 80 without encryption. Then run nghttpx as client mode to access to that web server:
$ nghttpx --client -f127.0.0.1,8080 -b127.0.0.1,80 --backend-no-tls
Note
You may need -k
option if HTTP/2 server enables SSL/TLS and
its certificate is self-signed. But please note that it is
insecure.
Then you can use curl to access HTTP/2 server via nghttpx:
$ curl http://localhost:8080/
Client proxy mode¶
If nghttpx is invoked with -p
option, it operates in client proxy
mode. This mode behaves like client mode, but it works like
forward proxy. So HTTP/1 request must include absolute URI in request
line.
HTTP/1 frontend connection can be upgraded to HTTP/2 using HTTP
Upgrade. To disable SSL/TLS in backend connection, use
--backend-no-tls
option.
By default, the number of backend HTTP/2 connections per worker
(thread) is determined by number of -b
option. To adjust this
value, use --backend-http2-connections-per-worker
option.
The backend server must be a HTTP/2 proxy. You can use nghttpx in HTTP/2 proxy mode as backend server. The one use-case of this mode is utilize existing HTTP/1 clients to test HTTP/2 connections between 2 proxies. The another use-case is use this mode to aggregate local HTTP/1 connections to one HTTP/2 backend encrypted connection. This makes HTTP/1 clients which does not support secure proxy can use secure HTTP/2 proxy via nghttpx client mode.
Suppose that HTTP/2 proxy listens to port 8443, just like we saw in HTTP/2 proxy mode. To run nghttpx in client proxy mode to access that server, invoke nghttpx like this:
$ nghttpx -p -f127.0.0.1,8080 -b127.0.0.1,8443
Note
You may need -k
option if HTTP/2 server's certificate is
self-signed. But please note that it is insecure.
Then you can use curl to issue HTTP request via HTTP/2 proxy:
$ curl --http-proxy=http://localhost:8080 http://www.google.com/
You can configure web browser to use localhost:8080 as forward proxy.
HTTP/2 bridge mode¶
If nghttpx is invoked with --http2-bridge
option, it operates in
HTTP/2 bridge mode. The supported protocols in frontend connections
are the same in default mode. The protocol in backend is HTTP/2
only.
With --frontend-no-tls
option, SSL/TLS is turned off in frontend
connection, so the connection gets insecure. To disable SSL/TLS in
backend connection, use --backend-no-tls
option.
By default, the number of backend HTTP/2 connections per worker
(thread) is determined by number of -b
option. To adjust this
value, use --backend-http2-connections-per-worker
option.
The backend server is supporsed to be a HTTP/2 web server or HTTP/2
proxy. If backend server is HTTP/2 proxy, use
--no-location-rewrite
and --no-host-rewrite
options to disable
rewriting location, host and :authority header field.
The use-case of this mode is aggregate the incoming connections to one HTTP/2 connection. One backend HTTP/2 connection is created per worker (thread).
Disable SSL/TLS¶
In default mode, HTTP/2 proxy mode and HTTP/2 bridge mode,
frontend connections are encrypted with SSL/TLS by default. To turn
off SSL/TLS, use --frontend-no-tls
option. If this option is
used, the private key and certificate are not required to run nghttpx.
In client mode, client proxy mode and HTTP/2 bridge mode,
backend connections are encrypted with SSL/TLS by default. To turn
off SSL/TLS, use --backend-no-tls
option.
Specifying additional CA certificate¶
By default, nghttpx tries to read CA certificate from system. But
depending on the system you use, this may fail or is not supported.
To specify CA certificate manually, use --cacert
option. The
specified file must be PEM format and can contain multiple
certificates.
By default, nghttpx validates server's certificate. If you want to
turn off this validation, knowing this is really insecure and what you
are doing, you can use -k
option to disable certificate
validation.
Read/write rate limit¶
nghttpx supports transfer rate limiting on frontend connections. You can do rate limit per frontend connection for reading and writing individually.
To perform rate limit for reading, use --read-rate
and
--read-burst
options. For writing, use --write-rate
and
--write-burst
.
Please note that rate limit is performed on top of TCP and nothing to do with HTTP/2 flow control.
Rewriting location header field¶
nghttpx automatically rewrites location response header field if the following all conditions satisfy:
- URI in location header field is not absolute URI or is not https URI.
- URI in location header field includes non empty host component.
- host (without port) in URI in location header field must match the host appearing in :authority or host header field.
When rewrite happens, URI scheme and port are replaced with the ones used in frontend, and host is replaced with which appears in :authority or host request header field. :authority header field has precedence. If the above conditions are not met with the host value in :authority header field, rewrite is retried with the value in host header field.
Hot swapping¶
nghttpx supports hot swapping using signals. The hot swapping in nghttpx is multi step process. First send USR2 signal to nghttpx process. It will do fork and execute new executable, using same command-line arguments and environment variables. At this point, both current and new processes can accept requests. To gracefully shutdown current process, send QUIT signal to current nghttpx process. When all existing frontend connections are done, the current process will exit. At this point, only new nghttpx process exists and serves incoming requests.
Re-opening log files¶
When rotating log files, it is desirable to re-open log files after
log rotation daemon renamed existing log files. To tell nghttpx to
re-open log files, send USR1 signal to nghttpx process. It will
re-open files specified by --accesslog-file
and
--errorlog-file
options.
Multiple backend addresses¶
nghttpx supports multiple backend addresses. To specify them, just
use -b
option repeatedly. For example, to use backend1:8080 and
backend2:8080, use command-line like this: -bbackend1,8080
-bbackend2,8080
. For HTTP/2 backend, see also
--backend-http2-connections-per-worker
option.