We can know more about NGINX auth_request to an external URL in this article. As part of our Server Management Service, Bobcares provides answers to all of your NGINX questions.

Setting up NGINX auth_request to an External URL

When the authentication service is located externally to the Nginx server or cluster, it is usual practice to configure Nginx’s auth_request module to issue an external HTTP request for authentication. With the aid of auth_request, we can send an HTTP request to an outside authentication provider and respond to it appropriately.

Steps Needed

1. Firstly, set up the auth_request module in the server or location block of Nginx. For instance,

2. An external HTTP service that handles authentication should be your-external-auth-service. Credentials or tokens should be able to be verified by this service, as well as it should be able to respond with the proper status code (200 for success, 401 for failure).

3. Verify that based on the authentication outcome, the authentication service returns the appropriate status code. The specifics also depend on how the authentication service is put into practice.

4. Test the setup to make sure proper authentication of the requests to /protected after configuring Nginx and the external authentication service. In order to confirm that only authenticated queries are permitted, we can also use programs like curl or a web browser.

5. We also need to modify the proxy_pass URL in the /auth location to include the authentication headers or parameters necessary by the service, depending on the choice of authentication method. Passing credentials, tokens, or API keys will be in this for validation.

[Want to learn more? Click here to reach us.]

Conclusion

Make sure we have appropriate security measures in place, especially if there is sensitive information.