How to serve devpi with https? - ssl

Question

I have an out-of-the-box devpi-server running on http://
I need to get it to work on https:// instead.
I already have the certificates for the domain.
I followed the documentation for nginx-site-config, and created the /etc/nginx/conf.d/domain.conf file that has the server{} block that points to my certificates (excerpt below).
However, my devpi-server --start --init is totally ignoring any/all nginx configurations.
How do i point the devpi-server to use the nginx configurations? Is it even possible, or am I totally missing the point?
/etc/nginx/conf.d/domain.conf file contents:
server {
server_name localhost $hostname "";
listen 8081 ssl default_server;
listen [::]:8081 ssl default_server;
server_name domain;
ssl_certificate /root/certs/domain/domain.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /root/certs/domain/domain.key;
ssl_protocols TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_ciphers EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH;
gzip on;
gzip_min_length 2000;
gzip_proxied any;
gzip_types application/json;
proxy_read_timeout 60s;
client_max_body_size 64M;
# set to where your devpi-server state is on the filesystem
root /root/.devpi/server;
# try serving static files directly
location ~ /\+f/ {
# workaround to pass non-GET/HEAD requests through to the named location below
error_page 418 = #proxy_to_app;
if ($request_method !~ (GET)|(HEAD)) {
return 418;
}
expires max;
try_files /+files$uri #proxy_to_app;
}
# try serving docs directly
location ~ /\+doc/ {
try_files $uri #proxy_to_app;
}
location / {
# workaround to pass all requests to / through to the named location below
error_page 418 = #proxy_to_app;
return 418;
}
location #proxy_to_app {
proxy_pass https://localhost:8081;
proxy_set_header X-outside-url $scheme://$host:$server_port;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
}
}

Answer 1

This is the answer I gave to the same question on superuser.
Devpi doesn't know anything about Nginx, it will just serve HTTP traffic. When we want to interact with a web-app via HTTPS instead, we as the client need to talk to a front-end which can handle it (Nginx) which will in turn communicate with our web-app. This application of Nginx is known as a reverse proxy. As a reverse proxy we can also benefit from Nginx's ability to serve static files more efficiently than getting our web-app to do it itself (hence the "try serving..." location blocks).
Here is a complete working Nginx config that I use for devpi. Note that this is /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file rather than a domain config like yours because I'm running Nginx and Devpi in docker with compose but you should be able to pull out what you need:
worker_processes 1;
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
# Define the location for devpi
upstream pypi-backend {
server localhost:8080;
}
# Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name _;
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name example.co.uk; # This is the accessing address eg. https://example.co.uk
root /devpi/server; # This is where your devpi server directory is
gzip on;
gzip_min_length 2000;
gzip_proxied any;
proxy_read_timeout 60s;
client_max_body_size 64M;
ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/certs/cert.crt; Path to certificate
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/certs/cert.key; Path to certificate key
ssl_session_cache builtin:1000 shared:SSL:10m;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!CAMELLIA:!DES:!MD5:!PSK:!RC4;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
access_log /var/log/nginx/pypi.access.log;
# try serving static files directly
location ~ /\+f/ {
error_page 418 = #pypi_backend;
if ($request_method !~ (GET)|(HEAD)) {
return 418;
}
expires max;
try_files /+files$uri #pypi_backend;
}
# try serving docs directly
location ~ /\+doc/ {
try_files $uri #pypi_backend;
}
location / {
error_page 418 = #pypi_backend;
return 418;
}
location #pypi_backend {
proxy_pass http://pypi-backend; # Using the upstream definition
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-outside-url $scheme://$host:$server_port;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
}
}
}
With Nginx using this configuration and devpi running on http://localhost:8080, you should be able to access https://localhost or with your machine with appropriate DNS https://example.co.uk. A request will be:
client (HTTPS) > Nginx (HTTP) > devpi (HTTP) > Nginx (HTTPS) > client
This also means that you will need to make sure that Nginx is running yourself, as devpi start won't know any better. You should at the very least see an Nginx welcome page.