nginx-proxy

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Basic authentication ​

You might want to protect some applications that you deploy with the nginx-proxy using basic authentication (username + password) so that not everyone can access it. Nginx supports this out-of-the-box with a little bit of configuration.

Step 1: Create htpasswd folder ​

bash
mkdir htpasswd

Step 2: Extend docker-compose.yml of nginx-proxy ​

yaml
version: "3"

services:
  nginx-proxy:
    # ...
    volumes:
      # ...
      - ./htpasswd:/etc/nginx/htpasswd

  # ...

Step 3: Inside htpasswd create a file with the name of the domain that you want to protect ​

bash
touch htpasswd/secret.example.com

Step 4: Install apache2-utils to generate encrypted password ​

The created file requires an encrypted password in a specific format. Install apache2-util with

bash
sudo apt install apache2-utils

Step 5: Generate username:password ​

bash
htpasswd -nb myUsername myPassword

Copy the generated command line output to the file created in step 3 and safe it.

Step 6: Restart nginx-proxy ​

bash
docker-compose up -d

When you now open the domain specified in step 3, you will be prompted to enter your username and password.