Requiring Passwords for Webpages (HTTP Authentication)

HTTP basic authentication will allow you to secure parts (or all) of your website with a username and password without the trouble of PHP or Javascript. - This will work with any Nginx server. -

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Installation

We will be using the command htpasswd to make username and password pairs.

apt install apache2-utils

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- Now think of a username and password and remember them. -

- -

htpasswd -c /etc/nginx/myusers username

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- Type out your password twice to confirm. You can do this as many times as you'd like. -

Check out user name password pairs (the password will be securely hashed):

cat /etc/nginx/myusers

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Nginx Config and Auth Basic

- From here, we are going to edit our websites config file in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled. - Have in mind which folder you'd like to secure. Add something like this: -

- -

server {
-    #...
-    location /secret-folder  {
-        auth_basic "What's the Password?" ;
-        auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/myusers ;
-    }
-    #...
-}

- - -

If you'd like to do the opposite, such as making the entire site private except for a public section, do this:

server {
-    #...
-    auth_basic "What's the Password?" ;
-    auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/myusers ;
-    location /public/ {
-        #...
-        auth_basic off ;
-    }
-    #...
-}

IP Addresses

If passwords aren't enough we can ban an ip or accept one.

location /api {
-    #...
-    allow 192.168.1.23:8080 ;
-    deny 127.0.0.1 ;
-}

If you want to check both a username and password with an ip address, use the satisfy directive.

location /api {
-    #...
-    satisfy all ;
-
-    allow 192.168.1.23:8080 ;
-    deny 127.0.0.1 ;
-
-    auth_basic "What's the Password?" ;
-    auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/myusers ;
-}

Complete Example

http {
-    server {
-        listen 80;
-        root /var/www/website ;
-
-        #...
-        location /secret-folder {
-            satisfy all ;
-
-            allow 192.168.1.3/24;
-            deny 127.0.0.1 ;
-
-            auth_basic "What's the Password?" ;
-            auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/myusers ;
-        }
-    }
-}

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- Now check your configuration with nginx -t -

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Reload nginx and you're good to go!

- - Contributor - tomfasano.co - -