Modifying nginx for use as transparent, forward proxy

Server NGINX
1

Hi All,

My understanding is that nginx cannot be used as a forward proxy out of
the
box. Is this correct?

If so, my thinking is that by making some small modifications to
ngx_http_proxy_module.c, it would be possible to have a nginx.conf file
with
“proxy_pass asdf”, where asdf ends up being ignored with the new
surgical
edits to ngx_http_proxy_module.c. Instead of doing the complex lookups
to
figure out the backend server, it would simply pull out the “Host” from
the
browser/client request being made, and use that as the appropriate URL
to
fetch.

Would this work?

(As a background, I currently have a squid + ICAP setup in transparent
proxy
mode, and it works fine for proof-of-concept, but falls over in terms of
performance. As a result, I’m trying to use nginx as a replacement. And
with
the http_sub module, I’m thinking I don’t even need ICAP, since we only
add
a small snippet after the HTML head section of every web page.)

If there are better / easier ways of getting nginx to work as a forward
proxy, please let me know, and I’d be happy to contribute the edits
back.

Thanks!
Mark

PS. If the response is in Russian, that’s cool too. I can read it just
fine
(and speak it), but my writing is rather poor. :slight_smile:

2

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 02:12:55AM -0700, Mark P. wrote:

browser/client request being made, and use that as the appropriate URL to
If there are better / easier ways of getting nginx to work as a forward
proxy, please let me know, and I’d be happy to contribute the edits back.

Thanks!
Mark

PS. If the response is in Russian, that’s cool too. I can read it just fine
(and speak it), but my writing is rather poor. :slight_smile:

Although writing in Russian is more easy for me I answer in English,
since this is English mailing list.

You may try the following configuration:

http {

 resolver 127.0.0.1; # do not forget to run named on localhost

 server {
     location / {
         proxy_pass  http://$http_host$request_line;
         sub         ...
     }
 }

However, I can not say that it will work without any issue.

3

Igor, thanks.

2009/9/10 Igor S. [email protected]