# Nginx outbound HTTP\_REFERER not working **URL:** \ **Category:** NGINX\ **Created:** [October 7, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-outbound-http-referer-not-working/196156 "2010-10-07T16:20:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jmadtech](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7cd45c/32.png) [@jmadtech](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jmadtech)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-outbound-http-referer-not-working/196156/1 "2010-10-07T16:20:33Z")
Hey all, I’ve got an interesting problem that I can’t seem to trace. On my site (which is running Nginx 0.6.24), I have a link to a customer’s external URL. When a user clicks that link and goes to the customer’s site, the HTTP\_REFERER is not being passed in the header by Nginx. I’ve verified that the problem is not on their end by using the curl command and manually passing a referrer… that shows up just fine on their end. Is there a directive I need to enable (or one that has possibly disabled it) that I can look at in my configs? Thanks so much in advance! Posted at Nginx Forum: > **[Nginx outbound HTTP\_REFERER not working](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,138135,138135#msg-138135)** > > Hey all, I've got an interesting problem that I can't seem to trace. On my site (which is running Nginx 0.6.24), I have a link to a customer's external URL. When a user clicks that link and goes to the customer's site, the HTTP\_REFERER is not being... ---
**Author:** ![jmadtech](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7cd45c/32.png) [@jmadtech](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jmadtech)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-outbound-http-referer-not-working/196156/2 "2010-10-07T16:43:23Z")
Hello! On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 10:19:14AM -0400, jmadtech wrote: > I’ve got an interesting problem that I can’t seem to trace. On my site > (which is running Nginx 0.6.24), I have a link to a customer’s external > URL. When a user clicks that link and goes to the customer’s site, the > HTTP\_REFERER is not being passed in the header by Nginx. When user “clicks that link and goes to the customer’s site” it’s up to user browser to decide whether to send Referer header or not. Your nginx doesn’t even know about that click and it’s not clear why you think there is something to do with nginx here. Maxim D. ---
**Author:** ![jmadtech](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7cd45c/32.png) [@jmadtech](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jmadtech)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-outbound-http-referer-not-working/196156/3 "2010-10-07T17:13:50Z")
well that was my originally assumption, but I verified that in all 3 versions of my browser (firefox, IE and Chrome) that I’m set to pass referer information to the site… and they’re still not getting it from me. When I manually execute the same URL call from the command line with a manually provided referer, it works fine. Posted at Nginx Forum: > **[Re: Nginx outbound HTTP\_REFERER not working](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,138135,138158#msg-138158)** > > Hey all, I've got an interesting problem that I can't seem to trace. On my site (which is running Nginx 0.6.24), I have a link to a customer's external URL. When a user clicks that link and goes to the customer's site, the HTTP\_REFERER is not being... ---
**Author:** ![jmadtech](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7cd45c/32.png) [@jmadtech](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jmadtech)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-outbound-http-referer-not-working/196156/4 "2010-10-07T18:18:14Z")
Nevermind, I figured it out. Our site is HTTPS and the link that the customer gave us is HTTP… according to [HTTP referer - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referrer), “If a website is accessed from a HTTP Secure connection and a link points to a non-secure connection, then the referrer header is not sent”. Thanks so much for pointing me in the right direction! Posted at Nginx Forum: > **[Re: Nginx outbound HTTP\_REFERER not working](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,138135,138185#msg-138185)** > > Hey all, I've got an interesting problem that I can't seem to trace. On my site (which is running Nginx 0.6.24), I have a link to a customer's external URL. When a user clicks that link and goes to the customer's site, the HTTP\_REFERER is not being...