# Nginx as a proxy, needs to follow 301 responses **URL:** \ **Category:** NGINX\ **Created:** [August 18, 2010, 11:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-as-a-proxy-needs-to-follow-301-responses/193508 "2010-08-18T23:32:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![hendrik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/839c29/32.png) [@hendrik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hendrik)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 11:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-as-a-proxy-needs-to-follow-301-responses/193508/1 "2010-08-18T23:32:15Z")
Hi everyone, I am using nginx as a proxy for custom URLs. I call URLs like /proxy/www.example.com/favicon.ico and nginx acts as a proxy for [www.example.com/favicon.ico](http://www.example.com/favicon.ico). This works fine as long as the response from the upstream server is not a 301. If it is a 301, this gets forwarded to the client which then calls the target location directly. Is there a way nginx can resolve these 301s and deliver the contents to the client? You can find the config below. Thank you very much! Hendrik location ~\* ^/proxy/(._?)/(._)$ { resolver 8.8.8.8; proxy\_pass http://$1/$2; server\_name\_in\_redirect on; } Posted at Nginx Forum: > **[Nginx as a proxy, needs to follow 301 responses](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,121104,121104#msg-121104)** > > Hi everyone, I am using nginx as a proxy for custom URLs. I call URLs like /proxy/www.example.com/favicon.ico and nginx acts as a proxy for www.example.com/favicon.ico. This works fine as long as the response from the upstream server is not a 301. If... ---
**Author:** ![hendrik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/839c29/32.png) [@hendrik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hendrik)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-as-a-proxy-needs-to-follow-301-responses/193508/2 "2010-08-19T03:41:01Z")
Hi, On 18/08/2010 22:31, hendrik wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I am using nginx as a proxy for custom URLs. I call URLs like > /proxy/www.example.com/favicon.ico and nginx acts as a proxy for > [www.example.com/favicon.ico](http://www.example.com/favicon.ico). This works fine as long as the response > from the upstream server is not a 301. If it is a 301, this gets > forwarded to the client which then calls the target location directly. > > Is there a way nginx can resolve these 301s and deliver the contents to > the client? You can find the config below. > I think you should be able to do this by compiling the headers-more > module ([GitHub - openresty/headers-more-nginx-module: Set, add, and clear arbitrary output headers in NGINX http servers · GitHub](http://github.com/agentzh/headers-more-nginx-module)) and have a > config like : ## proxy.conf resolver 8.8.8.8; proxy\_pass http://$1; more\_set\_headers -s ‘301 302 303’ ‘Location: /proxy/$upstream\_http\_location’; # you might want to add more 30x’s here ## nginx.conf location ~ ^/proxy/http://(.\*)$ { include proxy.conf; } location ~ ^/proxy/(.\*)$ { include proxy.conf; } though I’ve not tested it. I think that $upstream\_http\_location will be set after the response from the source server, but I’m not certain. A few notes : - Having a proxy without some kind of security check is probably not a good idea. You could do this with your proxy, but could also be done with iptables. - There’s probably not much point in trying to enforce ‘domain/url’ in the regex. It will slow things down, and you don’t really gain anything. Same with case-insensitive regexes. - Nginx buffers responses until the request has been completed before passing to the client. On small files, this shouldn’t be a problem, but on big ones it might. On continual audio/video streams, it will block (as far as I know, and it did the last time I tested it). - Depending on what you’re using it for, you might be better off using Apache Trafficserver as a high-performance forward proxy. The performance is good, and I think it’ll be able to do what you want, but the config files are really ugly. Cheers, Marcus. ---
**Author:** ![hendrik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/839c29/32.png) [@hendrik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hendrik)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-as-a-proxy-needs-to-follow-301-responses/193508/3 "2010-08-20T17:26:39Z")
Hi Marcus! Thank you very much for your response! I’ll have a look into the module you advised and leave some feedback. Regarding your remarks: - I am aware that leaving this proxy open is a security issue and I’m thinking about doing some basic checks like referrer. But since this setup can only proxy single files and isn’t defined according to socks-standards or something, I don’t think this should be a real problem. - I tried different regexes and sticked with this, since I tried some configs where I needed the host. Thanks for reminding me to change this back! 🙂 - I only need to proxy little images (\<10k). Do you know a way to permit only those sizes for nginx to proxy? Again, thank you very much for your answer! Hendrik Posted at Nginx Forum: > **[Re: Nginx as a proxy, needs to follow 301 responses](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,121104,121779#msg-121779)** > > Hi everyone, I am using nginx as a proxy for custom URLs. I call URLs like /proxy/www.example.com/favicon.ico and nginx acts as a proxy for www.example.com/favicon.ico. This works fine as long as the response from the upstream server is not a 301. If... ---
**Author:** ![hendrik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/839c29/32.png) [@hendrik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hendrik)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-as-a-proxy-needs-to-follow-301-responses/193508/4 "2010-08-20T19:26:39Z")
Hi, I don’t know think there’s a way of limiting the response size from proxied content, but there may be. Also, I just noticed the proxy\_max\_temp\_file\_size, which if you set to 0 disables using temporary files for proxying, so my previous comments about problems with large file sizes/streamed content can be ignored. Marcus.