This is an NGINX module to secure the server by authenticing with JSON Web Tokens.

Note that this has no relation to the JWT module provided by NGINX Plus.

To build the Docker image, start NGINX, and run our Bash test against it, run

./scripts.sh all

When you make a change to the module or the NGINX test config, run ./scripts.sh rebuild_nginx to rebuild the NGINX Docker image.

The ./scripts.sh file contains multiple commands to make things easy:

You can run multiple commands in sequence by separating them with a space, e.g.:

./scripts.sh rebuild_nginx rebuild_test_runner test

The image produced with ./scripts.sh build_nginx only differs from the official NGINX image in two ways:

• the JWT module itself, and
• the nginx.conf file is overwritten with our own.

The tests use a customized NGINX image, distinct from the main image, as well as a test runner image. By running ./scripts.sh test, the two test containers will be stood up via Docker compose, then they'll be started, and the tests will run. At the end of the test run, both containers will be automatically stopped and destroyed. See below to learn how to trace test failures across runs.

After making changes and finding that some tests fail, it can be difficult to understand why. By default, logs are written to Docker's internal log mechanism, but they won't be persisted after the test run completes and the containers are removed.

In order to persist logs, you can configure the log driver to use. You can do this by setting the environment variable LOG_DRIVER before running the tests. On Linux/Unix systems, you can use the driver journald, as follows:

# need to rebuild the test runner with the proper log driver
LOG_DRIVER=journald ./scripts.sh rebuild_test_runner

# run the tests
./scripts.sh test

# check the logs
journalctl -eu docker CONTAINER_NAME=jwt-nginx-test

Now you'll be able to see logs from previous test runs. The best way to make use of this is to open two terminals, one where you run the tests, and one where you follow the logs:

# terminal 1
./scripts.sh test

# terminal 2
journalctl -fu docker CONTAINER_NAME=jwt-nginx-test

This module depends on the JWT C Library. Transitively, that library depends on a JSON Parser called Jansson as well as the OpenSSL library.

This module requires several new nginx.conf directives, which can be specified at the http, server, or ___location levels.

The default algorithm is HS256, for symmetric key validation. When using one of the HS* algorithms, the value for auth_jwt_key should be specified in binhex format. It is recommended to use at least 256 bits of data (32 pairs of hex characters or 64 characters in total) as in the example above. Note that using more than 512 bits will not increase the security. For key guidelines please see NIST Special Publication 800-107 Recommendation for Applications Using Approved Hash Algorithms, Section 5.3.2 The HMAC Key.

The configuration also supports RSA public key validation via (e.g.) auth_jwt_algorithm RS256. When using the RS* alhorithms, the auth_jwt_key field must be set to your public key OR auth_jwt_use_keyfile should be set to on and auth_jwt_keyfile_path should point to the public key on disk. NGINX won't start if auth_jwt_use_keyfile is set to on and a key file is not provided.

When using an RS* algorithm with an inline key, be sure to set auth_jwt_key to the public key, rather than a PEM certificate. E.g.:

auth_jwt_key "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEA0aPPpS7ufs0bGbW9+OFQ
RvJwb58fhi2BuHMd7Ys6m8D1jHW/AhDYrYVZtUnA60lxwSJ/ZKreYOQMlNyZfdqA
rhYyyUkedDn8e0WsDvH+ocY0cMcxCCN5jItCwhIbIkTO6WEGrDgWTY57UfWDqbMZ
4lMn42f77OKFoxsOA6CVvpsvrprBPIRPa25H2bJHODHEtDr/H519Y681/eCyeQE/
1ibKL2cMN49O7nRAAaUNoFcO89Uc+GKofcad1TTwtTIwmSMbCLVkzGeExBCrBTQo
wO6AxLijfWV/JnVxNMUiobiKGc/PP6T5PI70Uv67Y4FzzWTuhqmREb3/BlcbPwtM
oQIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----";

When using an RS* algorithm with a public key file, do as follows:

auth_jwt_use_keyfile on;
auth_jwt_keyfile_path "/path/to/pub_key.pem";

A typical use would be to specify the key and login URL at the http level, and then only turn JWT authentication on for the locations which you want to secure.

By default the authorization header is used to provide a JWT for validation. However, you may use the auth_jwt_validation_type configuration to specify the name of a cookie that provides the JWT:

auth_jwt_validation_type COOKIE=jwt;

If you'd like to contribute to this repository, please first initiate the Git hooks by running ./.bin/init (note the . before bin) -- this will ensure that tests are run before you push your changes.

1. Install the C/C++ extension from Microsoft.
2. Add a C/C++ config file at .vscode/c_cpp_properties.json with the following (or similar) content:

{
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Linux",
            "includePath": [
                "${workspaceFolder}/**",
                "~/Projects/third-party/nginx/objs/**",
                "~/Projects/third-party/nginx/src/**",
                "~/Projects/third-party/libjwt/include/**",
                "~/Projects/third-party/jansson/src/**"
            ],
            "defines": [],
            "compilerPath": "/usr/bin/clang",
            "cStandard": "c17",
            "cppStandard": "c++14",
            "intelliSenseMode": "linux-clang-x64"
        }
    ],
    "version": 4
}

Note the includePath additions above -- please update them as appropriate. Next we need to pull these sources.

1. Download the NGINX release matching the version you're targeting.
2. Extract the NGINX archive to wherever you'd like.
3. Update the includePath entires shown above to match the ___location you chose.
4. Enter the directory where you extracted NGINX and run: ./configure --with-compat

1. Clone this repository as follows (replace <target_dir>): `git clone [email protected]:benmcollins/libjwt.git <target_dir>
2. Enter the directory and switch to the latest tag: git checkout $(git tag | sort -Vr | head -n 1)
3. Update the includePath entires shown above to match the ___location you chose.

1. Clone this repository as follows (replace <target_dir>): `git clone [email protected]:akheron/jansson.git <target_dir>
2. Enter the directory and switch to the latest tag: git checkout $(git tag | sort -Vr | head -n 1)
3. Update the includePath entires shown above to match the ___location you chose.

Once you save your changes to .vscode/c_cpp_properties.json, you should see that warnings and errors in the Problems panel go away, at least temprorarily. Hopfeully they don't come back, but if they do, make sure your include paths are set correctly.