Reverse Proxy

About Reverse Proxies

While ZNC is a fantastic bouncer, in many situations it can be beneficial to utilize a reverse proxy in front of it for features such as:

• Subdomains
• Tighter control of SSL ciphers and protocols
• ECDH support
• SSL session caching
• SSL stapling
• Compression

Notes

• TrustedProxy must be set in your configuration for web access logs to reflect actual addresses instead of the reverse proxy address (127.0.0.1 / ::1):

TrustedProxy = 127.0.0.1
TrustedProxy = ::1

Nginx

Note: If you plan on utilizing Nginx for IRC in conjunction with HTTP/HTTPS, the port number (or address) of the two services must be different.

HTTP

As a Subdomain

server {
    listen      192.0.2.1:80;
    listen      [2001:db8::192:0:2:1]:80;
    server_name znc.example.test;
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/znc.example.test/znc-access.log;
    error_log   /var/log/nginx/znc.example.test/znc-error.log;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://[::1]:6667/;
        # For IPv4 loopback (there's almost no reason to do this)
        # proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:6667/;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

As a Subdirectory

Note:

• There is intentionally no / after the port number.
• You must set URIPrefix of the Listener in ZNC to the target location

server {
    ...
    location /znc/ {
        proxy_pass http://[::1]:6667;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

On most distributions this would be put in /etc/nginx/conf.d/znc.example.test.conf .

HTTPS

This is a basic configuration utilizing Diffie Hellman key exchange:

server {
    listen      192.0.2.1:7001 ssl http2;
    listen      [2001:db8::192:0:2:1]:7001 ssl http2;
    server_name znc.example.test;
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/znc.example.test/znc_ssl-access.log;
    error_log   /var/log/nginx/znc.example.test/znc_ssl-error.log;

    # SSL options
    add_header              Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload" always;
    ssl_certificate         /etc/letsencrypt/live/znc.example.test/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key     /etc/letsencrypt/live/znc.example.test/privkey.pem;
    ssl_dhparam             /etc/letsencrypt/live/znc.example.test/dhparam.pem;
    ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/znc.example.test/chain.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://[::1]:7001$request_uri;
        # For IPv4 loopback (there's almost no reason to do this)
        # proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:7001$request_uri;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

On most distributions this would be put in /etc/nginx/conf.d/znc.example.test.conf .

IRC

Nginx has a directive separate from http called stream for protocols other than HTTP. We can utilize this to allow nginx to act as a reverse proxy for ZNC:

upstream znc {
    server [::1]:7000;
    # For IPv4 loopback (there's almost no reason to do this)
    # server 127.0.0.1:7000;
}

server {
    listen      192.0.2.1:7000 ssl;
    listen      [2001:db8::192:0:2:1]:7000 ssl;

    # SSL options
    ssl_certificate         /etc/letsencrypt/live/znc.example.test/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key     /etc/letsencrypt/live/znc.example.test/privkey.pem;
    ssl_dhparam             /etc/letsencrypt/live/znc.example.test/dhparam.pem;
    ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/znc.example.test/chain.pem;
    
    proxy_pass znc;
} 

On most distributions these would be put in /etc/nginx/conf.d/znc.example.test.stream .

Additional Configuration Abilities

Nginx has many configuration options that can enhance the behavior of both the ZNC web interface and IRC, so the http or server nginx directive options below only demonstrate the most common portions of them:

    sendfile            on;
    tcp_nopush          on;
    tcp_nodelay         on;
    keepalive_timeout   65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;

    server_tokens off;

    # Compression
    gzip                on;
    gzip_comp_level     9;
    gzip_types          application/javascript application/vnd.ms-fontobject application/x-font-otf application/x-font-ttf application/x-font-woff image/jpg image/png image/svg image/x-icon text/css;

    ###############
    # SSL options #
    ###############
    ssl_ciphers                 ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:DHE-DSS-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256;
    ssl_ecdh_curve              secp384r1;
    ssl_protocols               TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;
    ssl_session_cache           shared:https:15m;
    ssl_session_timeout         15m;

    # Stapling
    ssl_stapling                on;
    ssl_stapling_verify         on;
    resolver                    1.1.1.1 8.8.8.8 [2606:4700:4700::1111] [2001:4860:4860::8888];

lighttpd

HTTP

$HTTP["host"] =~ "^(sub\.domain\.com)$" {
  proxy.server = ( "" => ( ( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 6667 ) ) )
}