docs: cover deploying behind a reverse proxy that already owns 443 - #296
docs: cover deploying behind a reverse proxy that already owns 443#296rabbitson87 wants to merge 5 commits into
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📝 WalkthroughSummary by CodeRabbit
WalkthroughThe deployment guide adds shared-port reverse-proxy instructions, safer Compose commands, migration steps, troubleshooting, and baseline probes. The nginx examples add SNI stream routing, PROXY protocol forwarding, HTTP handling, and optional Portal TLS termination. ChangesReverse-proxy deployment
Sequence Diagram(s)sequenceDiagram
participant Client
participant nginx
participant Portal
Client->>nginx: Connect to public port 443 with SNI
nginx->>nginx: Inspect SNI and select upstream
nginx->>Portal: Forward lease traffic with PROXY protocol
nginx->>nginx: Forward Portal traffic to the local pass-through stage
nginx->>Portal: Forward Portal API and /sdk/connect requests
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In `@docs/src/routes/deployment/`+page.md:
- Around line 219-233: Choose and document one consistent nginx topology across
docs/src/routes/deployment/+page.md lines 219-233 and
docs/static/examples/reverse-proxy/nginx.conf lines 35 and 85. Prefer the
Docker-nginx topology: publish only nginx’s 443, remove Portal’s TCP host
mapping while keeping its internal SNI_PORT at 443, connect both services to the
same network, route the root-host stream to nginx’s HTTP listener, and bind
nginx where Portal does not publish; update all three sites accordingly.
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docs/src/routes/deployment/+page.md
[style] ~155-~155: Replacing this phrase with a shorter alternative might make your text sound more refined.
Context: ...ort and hands Portal the hostnames that belong to it. How it hands them over is not uniform,...
(BELONG_TO_PRP)
[locale-violation] ~257-~257: In American English, ‘afterward’ is the preferred variant. ‘Afterwards’ is more commonly used in British English and other dialects.
Context: ...anging anything, so that an error found afterwards can be attributed rather than investiga...
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[locale-violation] ~278-~278: In American English, ‘afterward’ is the preferred variant. ‘Afterwards’ is more commonly used in British English and other dialects.
Context: ...pare with probe | diff baseline.txt - afterwards. Judge by the difference, not by whethe...
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- NGINX distinguishes PROXY protocol directions:
listen ... proxy_protocolaccepts it, while streamproxy_protocol onsends it upstream.real_ip_header proxy_protocolshould be paired withset_real_ip_fromfor the trusted proxy address/range. Verify the 8443 listener and trust scope match this direction. - Compose normally appends port lists across override files;
ports: !overridereplaces them. The tag is a Compose-specific merge feature, so the guide should state the required Compose compatibility clearly. --remove-orphansremoves containers for services absent from the active Compose file;-p/COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAMEisolates projects. This supports the documented caution around shared projects.- Comparable NGINX configurations use
ssl_preread onfor SNI stream routing and commonly configureproxy_timeout/socket keepalive for long-lived streams. HTTP WebSocket/stream endpoints commonly use HTTP/1.1, Upgrade/Connection headers, disabled buffering, and extended read timeouts; verify/sdk/connectincludes the necessary settings.
🔇 Additional comments (2)
docs/src/routes/deployment/+page.md (1)
30-33: LGTM!Also applies to: 102-212, 235-344
docs/static/examples/reverse-proxy/nginx.conf (1)
1-34: LGTM!Also applies to: 37-84, 86-139
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The deployment approach is useful, but the published nginx example currently breaks the wildcard tunnel path in two independent ways. Please fix the SNI wildcard matching and ensure the PROXY header is consumed before traffic reaches Portal. The example should also choose one deployment model (host nginx or container nginx): it currently combines Docker DNS/service names with a host-loopback Compose mapping, so neither topology is reproducible as written. For TRUSTED_PROXY_CIDRS, please recommend the actual nginx source address/CIDR instead of the broad default private ranges.
| # breaks tunnels: clients running with --ban-mitm probe for exactly | ||
| # that and drop the relay when they find it. It also disables keyless | ||
| # TLS and ECH, both of which need the handshake to reach Portal. | ||
| *.portal.example.com portal:443; |
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*.portal.example.com is treated as a literal string here because this map does not enable hostname masks. Add hostnames; at the top of the block (or use an explicit regex such as ~^.+\.portal\.example\.com$). As written, every real lease hostname falls through to the default HTTP terminator instead of reaching Portal.
| # request reaches the http block as 127.0.0.1, which makes | ||
| # TRUST_PROXY_HEADERS pointless and IP policy match every visitor | ||
| # identically. | ||
| proxy_protocol on; |
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This directive applies to every upstream selected by this stream server, including portal:443. Portal does not parse PROXY protocol, so its ClientHello inspection receives PROXY ... before the TLS record and closes wildcard tunnel connections. Please split this into stages: the public listener may send PROXY protocol, but the wildcard path needs an intermediate stream listener with listen ... proxy_protocol that consumes the header and then proxies plain TLS to Portal. The root HTTP listener can continue consuming the header for real-IP recovery.
The guide assumes Portal takes public 443, and the only advice for a host
where something else already has it is to stop that something. That works
on a dedicated box and is unusable on one already serving other sites,
which is where a self-hosted relay often lands.
Portal genuinely cannot share the port -- its SNI router closes any
hostname it has no lease for, so a shared socket drops every request meant
for the other sites. The proxy has to keep the port, and the interesting
part is that the hostnames are not handed over uniformly:
- Lease hostnames must pass through untouched. Terminating TLS for them
breaks tunnels outright, because clients started with --ban-mitm probe
for termination and drop a relay that does it, and it disables keyless
TLS and ECH as well.
- The root host should be terminated. Portal reads the client address
from X-Forwarded-For and X-Real-IP and does not speak the PROXY
protocol, so passing it through raw makes every visitor arrive as the
proxy and leaves /api/policy/ips matching everyone or no one.
Recovering the address across the loopback hop needs proxy_protocol on the
stream listener and real_ip_header to read it back, which is worth stating
because the failure is silent: everything works, and the addresses are all
127.0.0.1.
Also removes --remove-orphans from the routine deploy commands. It belongs
to a one-time migration, not to every deploy, and on a project shared with
unrelated services it deletes containers belonging to other stacks. The
migration and troubleshooting steps now name the containers to remove.
The example config is tested: it renders and passes nginx -t in
nginx:1.27-alpine.
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The reverse-proxy deployment still has four correctness and security gaps beyond the existing SNI/PROXY/topology findings. In particular, the documented trust boundary permits client-IP spoofing, and terminating the root hostname conflicts with the ECH record Portal publishes for that hostname.
| need the handshake itself to reach Portal. | ||
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| **The root host should be terminated.** Portal derives the client address from | ||
| `X-Forwarded-For` and `X-Real-IP` only; it does not speak the PROXY protocol. |
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[P1] Account for Portal's root ECH record before terminating this TLS connection
With a managed DNS provider, prepareAPITLS publishes an HTTPS ech= record for PORTAL_URL and installs the corresponding derived ECH key only on Portal's API TLS listener. This nginx terminator has neither that key nor an ECH configuration, so ECH-capable clients that consume the advertised record can reject the connection before any HTTP request reaches Portal. Passing wildcard leases through preserves tenant ECH, but it does not preserve the relay root's ECH. Please either keep root TLS on Portal, add a proxy mode that stops advertising root ECH, or document/provide a front end that can terminate it with the same material.
| proxy_ssl_server_name on; | ||
| proxy_set_header Host $host; | ||
| proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; | ||
| proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; |
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[P1] Overwrite X-Forwarded-For at this public trust boundary
$proxy_add_x_forwarded_for preserves a header supplied by the Internet client. Portal's ExtractClientIP then trusts the first X-Forwarded-For entry whenever nginx's source address is trusted, so a request with X-Forwarded-For: <allowed-ip> becomes <allowed-ip>, <actual-ip> and can bypass /api/policy/ips. Since $remote_addr has already been restored from the PROXY header here, set X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr (in both locations), or otherwise discard the inbound header before rebuilding it.
| portal: | ||
| ports: !override | ||
| - "127.0.0.1:8443:443" | ||
| - "${WIREGUARD_PORT:-51820}:${WIREGUARD_PORT:-51820}/udp" |
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[P1] Preserve every enabled transport mapping in the replacement list
!override replaces the entire base ports list, but this example restores only the remapped TCP SNI listener and WireGuard UDP. Operators using the documented optional 443/udp QUIC backhaul or the MIN_PORT–MAX_PORT UDP/raw-TCP lease mappings will silently drop those publications and their existing tunnels will stop working. Please include the optional mappings here or explicitly require copying every enabled mapping into this replacement list.
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| ```bash | ||
| docker stop portal-api portal-frontend | ||
| docker rm portal-api portal-frontend |
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[P1] Target the actual Compose containers during migration
The superseded Compose stack did not set container_name, so its containers are normally named <project>-portal-api-1 and <project>-portal-frontend-1; docker stop portal-api portal-frontend therefore fails with No such container. The old stack also had an nginx edge service, which this removal list omits. Please retain/reference the old Compose file and use docker compose -f <old-file> stop/rm for nginx, portal-api, and portal-frontend, or resolve their real names through Compose labels before removing them.
Review found the published example unusable, and running it confirmed
worse than the summary suggested: with the previous file, a ClientHello
for a wildcard lease hostname never reached Portal at all.
Two independent faults, each silent.
An nginx `map` compares keys as literal strings unless `hostnames;` is
declared, so `*.portal.example.com` matched nothing and every lease fell
through to `default` -- the HTTP terminator. Verified by pointing the
example at a stand-in Portal and sending SNI `app.portal.example.com`:
before, the stand-in received nothing; after, it receives a ClientHello.
`proxy_protocol on` is a server-level directive, so the `:443` listener
sent the PROXY header to every destination it selected, Portal included.
Portal does not parse it and would read `PROXY TCP4 ...` where a TLS
record belongs. The lease path now goes through a `listen ... proxy_protocol`
stage that consumes the header and passes plain TLS onward; the same
stand-in confirms the first bytes Portal sees are `16 03 01`.
The topology was also not reproducible: Docker service names and a
127.0.0.1 host-port mapping cannot both be right, and if Portal published
127.0.0.1:8443 then nginx could not bind it. Settled on nginx as a
container beside Portal, with only nginx publishing host ports, and added
compose.override.yaml so the port arrangement is stated once.
Three more from review:
- X-Forwarded-For used the appending form at a public trust boundary.
Portal trusts the first entry, so a visitor sending
`X-Forwarded-For: 10.0.0.9` had it read as their address -- an
/api/policy/ips bypass. Overwrite with $remote_addr, which the PROXY
header has already restored. TRUSTED_PROXY_CIDRS is now the proxy's
own /32 rather than the default private ranges, which on a Docker host
trust every container.
- Terminating the root host conflicts with the ECH record Portal
publishes for that hostname: the derived key is installed only on its
own API listener. SyncECHConfig is a no-op without a DNS provider, so
the guide now makes pass-through the default and names manual
certificates as the condition under which terminating is safe.
- `ports: !override` replaces the list, and the example restored only
two mappings. A deployment using the QUIC backhaul or the lease port
range would have lost them silently. Every optional mapping is now
present and commented.
The migration step named containers that do not exist: the superseded
services set no container_name, so Compose names them
`<project>-portal-api-1`. It now goes through the old Compose file, or
resolves names through Compose labels, and includes the `nginx` service it
had omitted.
Verified: renders and passes nginx -t in nginx:1.27-alpine, and the
before/after SNI behaviour is as described above.
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Actionable comments posted: 1
🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents
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Inline comments:
In `@docs/static/examples/reverse-proxy/compose.override.yaml`:
- Around line 13-25: Update the nginx service in the Compose example and the
corresponding deployment guide to define the same custom IPAM-backed network,
assign nginx a stable ipv4_address, and configure TRUSTED_PROXY_CIDRS to that
address with a /32 mask when TRUST_PROXY_HEADERS is enabled. Choose and document
a subnet that does not overlap existing networks, and keep both examples
consistent.
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🪛 LanguageTool
docs/src/routes/deployment/+page.md
[style] ~155-~155: Replacing this phrase with a shorter alternative might make your text sound more refined.
Context: ...ort and hands Portal the hostnames that belong to it. Complete, tested configurations are in...
(BELONG_TO_PRP)
[locale-violation] ~304-~304: In American English, ‘afterward’ is the preferred variant. ‘Afterwards’ is more commonly used in British English and other dialects.
Context: ...anging anything, so that an error found afterwards can be attributed rather than investiga...
(AFTERWARDS_US)
[locale-violation] ~325-~325: In American English, ‘afterward’ is the preferred variant. ‘Afterwards’ is more commonly used in British English and other dialects.
Context: ...pare with probe | diff baseline.txt - afterwards. Judge by the difference, not by whethe...
(AFTERWARDS_US)
🔍 Remote MCP Context7
Additional review context
- Docker Compose appends
portsacross files by default;!overridereplaces the base list. This tag is therefore required for the documented port remapping and depends on a Compose version supporting custom merge tags. -p/COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAMEnamespaces Compose containers, networks, and volumes.--remove-orphansremoves containers for services absent from the active file, supporting the PR’s shared-project safety guidance.- NGINX’s PROXY protocol requires
proxy_protocolon the receivinglistendirective, andreal_ip_header proxy_protocolshould be paired with narrowly scopedset_real_ip_fromtrust entries. - NGINX stream connections have separate
proxy_protocol_timeout,preread_timeout, andproxy_timeoutcontrols; long-lived tunnel behavior should ensure the relevant timeouts are configured appropriately.
🔇 Additional comments (2)
docs/src/routes/deployment/+page.md (1)
30-33: LGTM!Also applies to: 102-115, 148-217, 248-407
docs/static/examples/reverse-proxy/nginx.conf (1)
1-205: LGTM!
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All seven addressed in SNI wildcard. Confirmed. I stood the example up against a stand-in Portal and sent SNI Without PROXY header on the wildcard path. Also confirmed, and it was masked by the first bug: nothing was getting there to be broken by it. Split into stages as you described — the public listener still sends the header, and a Topology. Settled on nginx as a container beside Portal on the Compose network, with only nginx publishing host ports. You were right that neither was reproducible: if Portal published
Root ECH. This one I had not considered at all.
Pass-through is now the example's default, and the terminating variant is documented with that condition stated first.
Migration container names. Fixed. It now goes through the old Compose file ( Verified: renders and passes |
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Heads-up before this lands: #311 (embedded authoritative DNS, merged to main in 24f720d) changes three premises this PR bakes in. Everything below was verified against main post-merge. 1. The root-host ECH termination table is no longer safe for the "empty provider" row. This PR documents: empty Post-#311 the rule simplifies: pass through the root host in all cases; the terminating variant is only defensible for operators who explicitly know they have no ECH record published, which is no longer the default state. 2.
3. Terminology: "empty (manual certificates)" no longer means that. Empty The updated configuration/deployment/self-hosting docs on main describe the new defaults if you want to cross-reference. None of this invalidates the proxy topology itself — the stream/SNI staging, PROXY-protocol handling, and the |
The guide told operators to set TRUSTED_PROXY_CIDRS to the proxy's own /32, which is right, and then left them to read that address off a container Compose had assigned dynamically. It changes when the container is recreated, and the failure that follows is silent: nginx keeps forwarding, Portal keeps serving, and the only difference is that Portal no longer trusts the forwarded address -- so IP bans and rate limits land on nginx instead of on visitors. The example now declares a network with its own IPAM and pins nginx into it, because Compose's implicit default network does not accept ipv4_address. Both services join it, so nginx still reaches portal:443 and portal:4017 by name, and the guide and nginx example quote the same address as the compose file. Only relevant when the root host is terminated; in the default pass-through mode TRUST_PROXY_HEADERS stays false and none of this applies. Verified: docker compose config resolves the fixed address, the template still passes nginx -t, and the docs build.
The terminate-the-root-host variant reads /etc/nginx/certs/fullchain.pem, and the compose example mounted ./certs there. The relay writes its certificate under IDENTITY_PATH, which the base file binds from ./.portal-certs, so an operator following the example would have pointed nginx at an empty directory and hit 'cannot load certificate' on startup. Found by resolving the example against the real docker-compose.yml rather than the stub used the first time; the two cert mounts did not meet. Verified end to end: nginx starts from this pair with Portal absent -- which also confirms the variable proxy_pass and resolver do what the comments claim -- takes the pinned 172.31.240.2, and passes nginx -t inside the container with the example config loaded.
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Re-checked this one against the real The terminate-the-root-host variant reads Resolved side by side, the two mounts simply did not meet: Now both are While there I ran the pair for real instead of only resolving it. nginx starts with Portal absent — the property the variable |
2 participants
What
The deployment guide assumes Portal owns public
443/tcp, and its only advice for a host where something else already has it is to stop that something:That works on a dedicated box. It is unusable on one already serving other sites — which is where a self-hosted relay often lands, and the case this PR documents.
Why Portal cannot just be proxied to
It cannot share the port.
portal/server.gocloses any hostname it has no lease for:So a socket shared with other sites drops every request meant for them. The proxy has to keep
443and hand Portal the hostnames that belong to it.The interesting part is that the two kinds of hostname are handed over differently, for opposite reasons:
*.portal.example.com--ban-mitmprobe for termination and drop a relay that does it, and it disables keyless TLS and ECH, which need the handshake to reach Portal.portal.example.com:4017X-Forwarded-For/X-Real-IPand does not speak the PROXY protocol. Passing this through raw makes every visitor arrive as the proxy, soTRUST_PROXY_HEADERShas nothing to read and/api/policy/ipsmatches everyone or no one.Getting this wrong in either direction fails quietly. Terminate the wildcard and tunnels break for
--ban-mitmclients only. Pass the root host through and everything works, with every address recorded as the proxy.Client addresses across the loopback hop
An SNI router forwarding to a local port opens a new connection, so the terminating listener sees the router. The guide now spells out the recovery, because this is the silent half:
proxy_protocolon alistendirective is a socket option, so every server block on that port gets the header — other sites keep a plainlisten ... ssland still see real addresses.--remove-orphansRemoved from the routine deploy commands. It belongs to a one-time migration, not to every deploy, and on a Compose project shared with unrelated services it deletes containers belonging to other stacks. The migration and troubleshooting steps now name the containers to remove instead.
Also added
!overrideports form, and whySNI_PORTstays 443 (Portal reaches its own API listener through its SNI router, and that port goes into the ECHHTTPSrecord)./is not a valid request for every host, and a WebSocket-only endpoint answers a plainGETwith nothing, which a proxy correctly reports as502.Verification
docs/static/examples/reverse-proxy/nginx.confrenders and passesnginx -tinnginx:1.27-alpine.Everything here was derived from running this topology, not from reading the code alone.