Web Interface Via Nginx Proxy

Introduction

This allows you to access Proxmox VE via the port 443

Tested from Proxmox 3.4 - 5.1

Why do I need this?

Sometimes there is a firewall restriction that blocks port 8006 and since we shouldn't touch the port config in proxmox we'll just use nginx as proxy to provide the web interface available on default https port 443. Now let's begin...

Configuration

• install nginx

apt install nginx

• remove the default config file – not needed on PVE 4/5 (Stretch & Jessie!)

rm /etc/nginx/conf.d/default

respectively

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

• create a new config file

nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/proxmox.conf

Note: on modern Debian systems the configuration files must have a .conf ending when placed in /etc/nginx/conf.d/

The following is an example config that works for the web interface and also the noVNC console:

upstream proxmox {
    server "FQDN HOSTNAME";
}
 
server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    rewrite ^(.*) https://$host$1 permanent;
}
 
server {
    listen 443;
    server_name _;
    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate /etc/pve/local/pve-ssl.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/pve/local/pve-ssl.key;
    proxy_redirect off;
    location / {
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade"; 
        proxy_pass https://localhost:8006;
	proxy_buffering off;
	client_max_body_size 0;
	proxy_connect_timeout  3600s;
        proxy_read_timeout  3600s;
        proxy_send_timeout  3600s;
        send_timeout  3600s;
    }
}

• Test and Apply new config

 nginx -t  # checks config syntax
 systemctl restart nginx

• ensure that nginx gets only started after the certificates are available

As the certificates reside on /etc/pve which is provided by the pve-cluster.service we need to tell nginx.service to only start after that one. The easiest and cleanest way to do that is to add an Requires and After as systemd override snippet.

This can be done with systemd edit UNIT which opens your $EDITOR:

  # systemctl edit nginx.service

here add:

[Unit]
Requires=pve-cluster.service
After=pve-cluster.service

and save + exit.

Enjoy the webinterface on HTTPS port 443!

See Also

NoVNC reverse Proxy with Apache https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/working-novnc-with-reverse-proxy-on-5-1.43644/