10.4. Reverse Proxies — Apache CouchDB 2.3 Documentation

# 10.4. Reverse Proxies

CouchDB recommends the use of HAProxy as a load balancer and reverse proxy. The team’s experience with using it in production has shown it to be superior for configuration and montioring capabilities, as well as overall performance.

CouchDB’s sample haproxy configuration is present in the code repository and release tarball as `rel/haproxy.cfg`.

However, there are suitable alternatives. Below are examples for configuring nginx and Caddy web-servers appropriately.

## 10.4.1. Reverse proxying with nginx

### 10.4.1.1. Basic Configuration

Here’s a basic excerpt from an nginx config file in `<nginx config directory>/sites-available/default`. This will proxy all requests from `http://domain.com/...` to `http://localhost:5984/...`

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:5984;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }

Proxy buffering must be disabled, or continuous replication will not function correctly behind nginx.

### 10.4.1.2. Reverse proxying CouchDB in a subdirectory with nginx

It can be useful to provide CouchDB as a subdirectory of your overall domain, especially to avoid CORS concerns. Here’s an excerpt of a basic nginx configuration that proxies the URL `http://domain.com/couchdb` to `http://localhost:5984` so that requests appended to the subdirectory, such as `http://domain.com/couchdb/db1/doc1` are proxied to `http://localhost:5984/db1/doc1`.

    location /couchdb {
        rewrite /couchdb/(.*) /$1 break;
        proxy_pass http://localhost:5984;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }

### 10.4.1.3. Authentication with nginx as a reverse proxy

Here’s a sample config setting with basic authentication enabled, placing CouchDB in the `/couchdb` subdirectory:

    location /couchdb {
        auth_basic "Restricted";
        auth_basic_user_file htpasswd;
        rewrite /couchdb/(.*) /$1 break;
        proxy_pass http://localhost:5984;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header Authorization "";
    }

This setup leans entirely on nginx performing authorization, and forwarding requests to CouchDB with no authentication (with CouchDB in Admin Party mode). For a better solution, see Proxy Authentication.

### 10.4.1.4. SSL with nginx

In order to enable SSL, just enable the nginx SSL module, and add another proxy header:

    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate PATH_TO_YOUR_PUBLIC_KEY.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key PATH_TO_YOUR_PRIVATE_KEY.key;
    ssl_protocols SSLv3;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:1m;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:5984;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
    }

The `X-Forwarded-Ssl` header tells CouchDB that it should use the `https` scheme instead of the `http` scheme. Otherwise, all CouchDB-generated redirects will fail.

## 10.4.2. Reverse Proxying with Caddy

### 10.4.2.1. Basic configuration

Here’s a basic excerpt from a Caddyfile in `/<path>/<to>/<site>/Caddyfile`. This will proxy all requests from `http(s)://domain.com/...` to `http://localhost:5984/...`

    domain.com {

        import /path/to/other/config.caddy # logging, error handling etc.

        proxy / localhost:5984 {
            transparent
        }

    }

Note

The `transparent` preset in the `proxy` directive is shorthand for:

    header_upstream Host {host}
    header_upstream X-Real-IP {remote}
    header_upstream X-Forwarded-For {remote}
    header_upstream X-Forwarded-Proto {scheme}

Note that, because Caddy is https-by-default, you must explicitly include the `http://` protocol in the site address if you do NOT want Caddy to automatically acquire and install an SSL certificate and begin accepting `https` connections on port 443.

### 10.4.2.2. Reverse proxying CouchDB in a subdirectory with Caddy

It can be useful to provide CouchDB as a subdirectory of your overall domain, especially to avoid CORS concerns. Here’s an excerpt of a basic Caddy configuration that proxies the URL `http(s)://domain.com/couchdb` to `http://localhost:5984` so that requests appended to the subdirectory, such as `http(s)://domain.com/couchdb/db1/doc1` are proxied to `http://localhost:5984/db1/doc1`.

    domain.com {

        import /path/to/other/config.caddy # logging, error handling etc.

        proxy /couchdb localhost:5984 {
            transparent
            without /couchdb
        }

    }

### 10.4.2.3. Reverse proxying + load balancing for CouchDB clusters

Here’s a basic excerpt from a Caddyfile in `/<path>/<to>/<site>/Caddyfile`. This will proxy and evenly distribute all requests from `http(s)://domain.com/...` among 3 CouchDB cluster nodes at `localhost:15984`, `localhost:25984` and `localhost:35984`.

Caddy will check the status, i.e. health, of each node every 5 seconds; if a node goes down, Caddy will avoid proxying requests to that node until it comes back online.

    domain.com {

        import /path/to/other/config.caddy # logging, error handling etc.

        proxy / http://localhost:15984 http://localhost:25984 http://localhost:35984 {
            policy round_robin
            health_check /_up
            health_check_duration 5s
            try_interval 500ms
            keepalive 0
            transparent
        }

    }

### 10.4.2.4. Authentication with Caddy as a reverse proxy

Here’s a sample config setting with basic authentication enabled, placing CouchDB in the `/couchdb` subdirectory:

    domain.com {

        import /path/to/other/config.caddy # logging, error handling etc.

        basicauth /couchdb couch_username couchdb_password

        proxy /couchdb localhost:5984 {
            transparent
            header_upstream -Authorization
            without /couchdb
        }

    }

For security reasons, using a plaintext password in the `Caddyfile` is not advisable. One solution is to define Caddy-process environment variables e.g. `COUCH_PW=couchdb_password` and using placeholders in the `Caddyfile` instead, e.g. `{$COUCH_PW}`.

This setup leans entirely on Caddy performing authorization, and forwarding requests to CouchDB with no authentication (with CouchDB in Admin Party mode). For a better solution, see Proxy Authentication.

### 10.4.2.5. SSL/TLS with Caddy

Caddy is https-by-default, and will automatically acquire, install, activate and, when necessary, renew a trusted SSL certificate for you - all in the background. Certificates are issued by the LetsEncrypt certificate authority.

    domain.com {

        import /path/to/other/config.caddy # logging, error handling etc.

        proxy / localhost:5984 {
            transparent
            header_upstream x-forwarded-ssl on
        }

    }

The `x-forwarded-ssl` header tells CouchDB that it should use the `https` scheme instead of the `http` scheme. Otherwise, all CouchDB-generated redirects will fail.