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Secure sessions with Node.js, Connect, and Nginx as an SSL Proxy
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| Secure sessions are easy, but it's not very well documented, so I'm changing that. Here's a recipe for secure sessions in Node.js when NginX is used as an SSL proxy: | |
| The desired configuration for using NginX as an SSL proxy is to offload SSL processing and to put a hardened web server in front of your Node.js application, like: | |
| ` [NODE.JS APP] <- HTTP -> [NginX] <- HTTPS -> [CLIENT] ` | |
| To do this, here's what you need to do: | |
| 1. Configure Connect(Express) to do sessions: | |
| ```javascript | |
| app.enable('trust proxy'); | |
| app.use(express.bodyParser()); | |
| app.use(express.cookieParser()); | |
| app.use(express.session({ | |
| secret: 'Super Secret Password', | |
| proxy: true, | |
| key: 'session.sid', | |
| cookie: {secure: true}, | |
| store: new sessionStore() //NEVER use in-memory store for production - I'm using mongoose/mongodb here | |
| })); | |
| ``` | |
| 2. Configure nginx to do SSL and forward all the requireed headers that COnnect needs to do secure sessions: | |
| ``` | |
| server { | |
| listen 443; | |
| server_name localhost; | |
| ssl on; | |
| ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/nodeapp.crt; | |
| ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/nodeapp.key; | |
| ssl_session_timeout 5m; | |
| ssl_protocols SSLv2 SSLv3 TLSv1; | |
| ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5; | |
| ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on; | |
| location / { | |
| #THESE ARE IMPORTATNT | |
| proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; | |
| proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; | |
| #This is what tells Connect that your session can be considered secure, even though the protocol node.js sees is only HTTP: | |
| proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; | |
| proxy_set_header Host $http_host; | |
| proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true; | |
| proxy_read_timeout 5m; | |
| proxy_connect_timeout 5m; | |
| proxy_pass http://nodeserver; | |
| proxy_redirect off; | |
| } | |
| } | |
| ``` |
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