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Using a reverse proxy#

In the following example, we show configuration files for a JupyterHub server running locally on port 8000 but accessible from the outside on the standard SSL port 443. This could be useful if the JupyterHub server machine is also hosting other domains or content on 443. The goal in this example is to satisfy the following:

  • JupyterHub is running on a server, accessed only via HUB.DOMAIN.TLD:443

  • On the same machine, NO_HUB.DOMAIN.TLD strictly serves different content, also on port 443

  • nginx or apache is used as the public access point (which means that only nginx/apache will bind to 443)

  • After testing, the server in question should be able to score at least an A on the Qualys SSL Labs SSL Server Test

Let’s start out with the needed JupyterHub configuration in jupyterhub_config.py:

# Force the proxy to only listen to connections to 127.0.0.1 (on port 8000)
c.JupyterHub.bind_url = 'http://127.0.0.1:8000'

(For Jupyterhub < 0.9 use c.JupyterHub.ip = '127.0.0.1'.)

For high-quality SSL configuration, we also generate Diffie-Helman parameters. This can take a few minutes:

openssl dhparam -out /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem 4096

Nginx#

This nginx config file is fairly standard fare except for the two location blocks within the main section for HUB.DOMAIN.tld. To create a new site for jupyterhub in your Nginx config, make a new file in sites.enabled, e.g. /etc/nginx/sites.enabled/jupyterhub.conf:

# Top-level HTTP config for WebSocket headers
# If Upgrade is defined, Connection = upgrade
# If Upgrade is empty, Connection = close
map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade {
    default upgrade;
    ''      close;
}

# HTTP server to redirect all 80 traffic to SSL/HTTPS
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name HUB.DOMAIN.TLD;

    # Redirect the request to HTTPS
    return 302 https://$host$request_uri;
}

# HTTPS server to handle JupyterHub
server {
    listen 443;
    ssl on;

    server_name HUB.DOMAIN.TLD;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/HUB.DOMAIN.TLD/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/HUB.DOMAIN.TLD/privkey.pem;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem;
    ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA';
    ssl_session_timeout 1d;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
    ssl_stapling on;
    ssl_stapling_verify on;
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=15768000;

    # Managing literal requests to the JupyterHub frontend
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;

        # websocket headers
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header X-Scheme $scheme;

        proxy_buffering off;
    }

    # Managing requests to verify letsencrypt host
    location ~ /.well-known {
        allow all;
    }
}

If nginx is not running on port 443, substitute $http_host for $host on the lines setting the Host header.

nginx will now be the front-facing element of JupyterHub on 443 which means it is also free to bind other servers, like NO_HUB.DOMAIN.TLD to the same port on the same machine and network interface. In fact, one can simply use the same server blocks as above for NO_HUB and simply add a line for the root directory of the site as well as the applicable location call:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name NO_HUB.DOMAIN.TLD;

    # Redirect the request to HTTPS
    return 302 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443;
    ssl on;

    # INSERT OTHER SSL PARAMETERS HERE AS ABOVE
    # SSL cert may differ

    # Set the appropriate root directory
    root /var/www/html

    # Set URI handling
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    # Managing requests to verify letsencrypt host
    location ~ /.well-known {
        allow all;
    }

}

Now restart nginx, restart the JupyterHub, and enjoy accessing https://HUB.DOMAIN.TLD while serving other content securely on https://NO_HUB.DOMAIN.TLD.

SELinux permissions for Nginx#

On distributions with SELinux enabled (e.g. Fedora), one may encounter permission errors when the Nginx service is started.

We need to allow Nginx to perform network relay and connect to the JupyterHub port. The following commands do that:

semanage port -a -t http_port_t -p tcp 8000
setsebool -P httpd_can_network_relay 1
setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1

Replace 8000 with the port the JupyterHub server is running from.

Apache#

As with Nginx above, you can use Apache as the reverse proxy. First, we will need to enable the Apache modules that we are going to need:

a2enmod ssl rewrite proxy headers proxy_http proxy_wstunnel

Our Apache configuration is equivalent to the Nginx configuration above:

  • Redirect HTTP to HTTPS

  • Good SSL Configuration

  • Support for WebSocket on any proxied URL

  • JupyterHub is running locally at http://127.0.0.1:8000

# Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
Listen 80
<VirtualHost HUB.DOMAIN.TLD:80>
  ServerName HUB.DOMAIN.TLD
  Redirect / https://HUB.DOMAIN.TLD/
</VirtualHost>

Listen 443
<VirtualHost HUB.DOMAIN.TLD:443>

  ServerName HUB.DOMAIN.TLD

  # Enable HTTP/2, if available
  Protocols h2 http/1.1

  # HTTP Strict Transport Security (mod_headers is required) (63072000 seconds)
  Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000"

  # Configure SSL
  SSLEngine on
  SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/HUB.DOMAIN.TLD/fullchain.pem
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/HUB.DOMAIN.TLD/privkey.pem
  SSLOpenSSLConfCmd DHParameters /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem

  # Intermediate configuration from SSL-config.mozilla.org (2022-03-03)
  # Please note, that this configuration might be outdated - please update it accordingly using https://ssl-config.mozilla.org/
  SSLProtocol             all -SSLv3 -TLSv1 -TLSv1.1
  SSLCipherSuite          ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
  SSLHonorCipherOrder     off
  SSLSessionTickets       off

  # Use RewriteEngine to handle WebSocket connection upgrades
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP:Connection} Upgrade [NC]
  RewriteCond %{HTTP:Upgrade} websocket [NC]
  RewriteRule /(.*) ws://127.0.0.1:8000/$1 [P,L]

  <Location "/">
    # preserve Host header to avoid cross-origin problems
    ProxyPreserveHost on
    # proxy to JupyterHub
    ProxyPass         http://127.0.0.1:8000/
    ProxyPassReverse  http://127.0.0.1:8000/
    RequestHeader     set "X-Forwarded-Proto" expr=%{REQUEST_SCHEME}
  </Location>
</VirtualHost>

In case of the need to run JupyterHub under /jhub/ or another location please use the below configurations:

  • JupyterHub running locally at http://127.0.0.1:8000/jhub/ or other location

httpd.conf amendments:

 RewriteRule /jhub/(.*) ws://127.0.0.1:8000/jhub/$1 [P,L]
 RewriteRule /jhub/(.*) http://127.0.0.1:8000/jhub/$1 [P,L]

 ProxyPass /jhub/ http://127.0.0.1:8000/jhub/
 ProxyPassReverse /jhub/  http://127.0.0.1:8000/jhub/

jupyterhub_config.py amendments:

# The public facing URL of the whole JupyterHub application.
# This is the address on which the proxy will bind. Sets protocol, IP, base_url
c.JupyterHub.bind_url = 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/jhub/'
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