Trying to get a clear picture of nginx integration

[vutsalsinghal]

Hi @acouvreur

Thank you for this project! I went through all the docs and I'm trying to understand how to integrate it with my existing nginx setup. Would appreciate if you could shed some light

My docker-compose.yml

  nginx:
    build:
      context: ./nginx
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    container_name: nginx_container
    environment:
      - TZ=America/Los_Angeles
    volumes:
      - ./nginx/nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
      - ./nginx/conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
      - ./nginx/includes:/etc/nginx/includes
    entrypoint: "/bin/sh -c 'while :; do sleep 6h; nginx -s reload; done & nginx -g \"daemon off;\"'"
    network_mode: "host"
    restart: unless-stopped

  sablier:
    image: acouvreur/sablier:latest
    container_name: sablier_container
    command:
      - start
      - --configFile=/etc/sablier/sablier.yml
    volumes:
      - ./sablier/sablier.yml:/etc/sablier/sablier.yml
      - ./sablier/themes:/etc/sablier/themes # added ghost.html in themes folder
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
    network_mode: "host"
    restart: unless-stopped
  
  whoami:
    image: containous/whoami:latest
    container_name: whoami_container
    command:
       - --port=9098
    labels:
      - sablier.enable=true
      - sablier.group=app_grp
    network_mode: "host"
    restart: unless-stopped

sablier.yml

provider:
  name: docker
server:
  port: 9097
  base-path: /
# storage:
  # file: /etc/sablier/state.json
sessions:
  default-duration: 5m
  expiration-interval: 20s
logging:
  level: debug
strategy:
  dynamic:
    custom-themes-path:
    show-details-by-default: true
    default-theme: ghost
    default-refresh-frequency: 5s
  blocking:
    default-timeout: 1m

nginx.conf

user  nginx;
worker_processes  auto;

error_log  /var/log/nginx/default.error.log warn;
pid        /var/run/nginx.pid;

load_module "modules/ngx_http_js_module.so";

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}


http {
    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type text/html;

    log_format main '[x_forwarded="$http_x_forwarded_for"] [$time_local] [status=$status] [host=$host] ["$request"] '
                      '[bytes=$body_bytes_sent] [referer="$http_referer"] '
                      '[agent="$http_user_agent"]';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/default.access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    keepalive_timeout  65;

    # Gzip Settings
    gzip on;
    gzip_disable "msie6";
    gzip_vary on;
    gzip_proxied any;
    gzip_comp_level 6;
    gzip_buffers 16 8k;
    gzip_http_version 1.1;
    gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}

conf.d/personal.conf

js_import "conf.d/sablier.js";

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name _;
    access_log off;
}

upstream whoami_backend {
    server 172.12.0.1:9098;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    server_name who.exmaple.com;
    include includes/wildcard-certs;

    subrequest_output_buffer_size 32k;
    set $sablierUrl /sablier;
    set $sablierSessionDuration 1m;

    location /sablier/ {
        internal;
        proxy_method GET;
        proxy_pass http://172.12.0.1:9097/;
    }

    location @whoami {
        proxy_pass http://whoami_backend;
    }

    location /dynamic/whoami_container {
        set $sablierDynamicShowDetails true;
        set $sablierDynamicRefreshFrequency 5s;
        set $sablierNginxInternalRedirect @whoami;
        set $sablierGroup app_grp;
        set $sablierDynamicName "whoami";
        set $sablierDynamicTheme ghost;
        js_content sablier.call;
    }
}

• sablier.js is in /etc/nginx/conf.d in the container.

Everything is up and running (no errors). Now the expectation is - if the whoami_container is down and I try to visit who.exmaple.com, sablier will show status_page while it brings the whoami_container up and then once the container is up, it will reload the browser to the whoami_container. Right?

Error in nginx logs

2023/07/13 18:04:10 [error] 10#10: *14 js exception: TypeError: cannot get property "split" of undefined
    at querystring.stringify (native)
    at createDynamicUrl (/etc/nginx/conf.d/sablier.js:78)
    at buildRequest (/etc/nginx/conf.d/sablier.js:64)
    at call (/etc/nginx/conf.d/sablier.js:6)
, client: ::1, server: who.example.com, request: "GET /dynamic/whoami_container HTTP/1.1", host: "who.example.com"

If whoami_container is already running then there is no issue but if I manually stop and try to navigate to the page, nothing happens. Is there any fault in my config?

EDIT: SOLUTION

Updating the following in conf.d/personal.conf worked!

location /dynamic/whoami_container {
        set $sablierDynamicShowDetails true;
        set $sablierDynamicRefreshFrequency 5s;
        set $sablierNginxInternalRedirect @whoami;
        set $sablierNames "whoami_container";
        set $sablierDynamicName "whoami";
        set $sablierDynamicTheme ghost;
        js_content sablier.call;
    }

---

Question: After the container was up, the url in browser is still https://who.example.com/dynamic/whoami_container. How do I make it redirect to https://who.example.com ?

EDIT: SOLUTION

Updated the following in sablier.js
Changed r.internalRedirect(config.internalRedirect); to r.return(302, config.internalRedirect); in function call()

[acouvreur]

Hello @vutsalsinghal !

You are using ip addresses instead of containers name inside your config.

This might work for sablier and for whoami because its on network_host.

But be aware that I did this in the doc:

 # A named location that can be used by the sablier middleware to redirect
    location @whoami {
        # Use variable in order to refresh DNS cache
        set $whoami_server whoami;
        proxy_pass http://$whoami_server:80;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }

Because containers are getting started, stopped on an endless loop. They will have an IP change, if you do not do that, it will stop working at some point because nginx will keep using the cached IP address.

At least that's what I've figured out.

[vutsalsinghal]

You're right but I've static IP so not an issue.

I've another question @acouvreur - consider whoami_container is down currently. When I go to who.exmaple.com, I have achieved this workflow without issues:

who.exmaple.com -> who.exmaple.com/dynamic/whoami_container ->(sablier brings up container) -> who.exmaple.com

I'm able to achieve this by using something like this in nginx

error_page 502 503 = @error50x;
location @error50x {
    return 302 /dynamic/whoami_container;
}

But how do I achieve this?

who.exmaple.com/some-uri -> who.exmaple.com/dynamic/whoami_container ->(sablier brings up container) -> who.exmaple.com/some-uri

I tried a few things but I was not able to redirect (or preserve) the the uri /some-uri once the container was up?

[vutsalsinghal]

Should I create a separate discussion for this?

[vutsalsinghal]

Started #164

[acouvreur]

Actually there is an issue when using groups!

The group are not correctly built iinto the request! So there is indeed a bug, are you sure found a solution?

sablier/plugins/nginx/njs/sablier.js

Lines 41 to 47 in 4fd8a24

	function createConfigurationFromVariables(r) {
	return {
	sablierUrl: r.variables.sablierUrl,
	names: r.variables.sablierNames,
	group: r.variables.sablierGroup,
	sessionDuration: r.variables.sablierSessionDuration,
	internalRedirect: r.variables.sablierNginxInternalRedirect,

Here we can see the group getting retrieved

But here

sablier/plugins/nginx/njs/sablier.js

Lines 76 to 85 in 4fd8a24

	function createDynamicUrl(config) {
	const url = `${config.sablierUrl}/api/strategies/dynamic`
	const query = querystring.stringify({
	names: config.names.split(",").map(name => name.trim()),
	session_duration: config.sessionDuration,
	display_name:config.displayName,
	theme: config.theme,
	refresh_frequency: config.refreshFrequency,
	show_details: config.showDetails
	});

Group is not used! So I have to fix that

[vutsalsinghal]

Yes, I saw from other issues/discussion that sablierGroup has issues so i'm using set $sablierNames "whoami_container";

[acouvreur]

I created this PR so it can be used:

#163