**HSTS Preloading:**
In its strongest and recommended form, the [HSTS policy](https://www.chromium.org/hsts) includes all subdomains, and indicates a willingness to be “preloaded” into browsers:
`Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload`
**X-Xss-Protection:**
`1; mode=block` which tells the browser to block the response if it detects an attack rather than sanitising the script.
We have a flow like this:
1. matrix.DOMAIN vhost (matrix-domain.conf)
2. matrix-synapse vhost (matrix-synapse.conf); or matrix-corporal container, if enabled
3. (optional) matrix-synapse vhost (matrix-synapse.conf), if matrix-corporal enabled
4. matrix-synapse container
We are setting `X-Forwarded-For` correctly in step #1, but were
overwriting it in step #2 with something inaccurate.
Not doing anything in step #2 is better than doing the wrong thing.
It's probably best if we append another reverse-proxy address there
though, although what we're doing now (with this patch) seems to yield
the correct result (when matrix-corporal is not enabled).
When matrix-corporal is enabled, we still seem to do the wrong thing for
some reason. It's something to be fixed later on.
People who were disabling matrix-nginx-proxy (in favor of their own
nginx webserver) and also overriding `matrix_federation_public_port`,
found that the generated nginx configuration still hardcoded `8448`,
which forced their nginx server to use that, regardless of the fact
that `matrix_federation_public_port` was pointing elsewhere.
We now allow for the in-container federation port to be configurable,
and also automatically wire things properly.
We're talking about a webserver running on the same machine, which
imports the configuration files generated by the `matrix-nginx-proxy`
in the `/matrix/nginx-proxy/conf.d` directory.
Users who run an nginx webserver on some other machine will need to do
something different.
This give us the possibility to run multiple instances of
workers that that don't expose a port.
Right now, we don't support that, but in the future we could
run multiple `federation_sender` or `pusher` workers, without
them fighting over naming (previously, they'd all be named
something like `matrix-synapse-worker-pusher-0`, because
they'd all define `port` as `0`).
This switches the `docker exec` method of spawning
Synapse workers inside the `matrix-synapse` container with
dedicated containers for each worker.
We also have dedicated systemd services for each worker,
so this are now:
- more consistent with everything else (we don't use systemd
instantiated services anywhere)
- we don't need the "parse systemd instance name into worker name +
port" part
- we don't need to keep track of PIDs manually
- we don't need jq (less depenendencies)
- workers dying would be restarted by systemd correctly, like any other
service
- `docker ps` shows each worker separately and we can observe resource
usage
We do this by creating one more layer of indirection.
First we reach some generic vhost handling matrix.DOMAIN.
A bunch of override rules are added there (capturing traffic to send to
ma1sd, etc). nginx-status and similar generic things also live there.
We then proxy to the homeserver on some other vhost (only Synapse being
available right now, but repointing this to Dendrite or other will be
possible in the future).
Then that homeserver-specific vhost does its thing to proxy to the
homeserver. It may or may not use workers, etc.
Without matrix-corporal, the flow is now:
1. matrix.DOMAIN (matrix-nginx-proxy/matrix-domain.conf)
2. matrix-nginx-proxy/matrix-synapse.conf
3. matrix-synapse
With matrix-corporal enabled, it becomes:
1. matrix.DOMAIN (matrix-nginx-proxy/matrix-domain.conf)
2. matrix-corporal
3. matrix-nginx-proxy/matrix-synapse.conf
4. matrix-synapse
(matrix-corporal gets injected at step 2).
I guess it didn't hurt to do it until now, but it's not great serving
federation APIs on the client-server API port, etc.
matrix-corporal doesn't work yet (still something to be solved in the
future), but its firewalling operations will also be sabotaged
by Client-Server APIs being served on the federation port (it's a way to get around its firewalling).
Not sure if it breaks with them or not, but no other directive
uses quotes and the nginx docs show examples without quotes,
so we're being consistent with all of that.
The different configurations are now all lower case, for consistent
naming.
`matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_config` is now called
`matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_preset`. The different options for "modern",
"intermediate" and "old" are stored in the main.yml file, instead of
being hardcoded in the configuration files. This will improve the
maintainability of the code.
The "custom" preset was removed. Now if one of the variables is set, it
will use it instead of the preset. This will allow to mix and match more
easily, for example using all the intermediate options but only
supporting TLSv1.2. This will also provide better backward
compatibility.
A new variable called `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_config` is created for
configuring how the nginx proxy configures SSL. Also a new configuration
validation option and other auxiliary variables are created.
A new variable configuration called `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_config` is
created. This allow to set the SSL configuration easily using the
default options proposed by Mozilla. The default configuration is set to
"Intermediate", removing the weak ciphers used in the old
configurations.
The new variable can also be set to "Custom" for a more granular control.
This allows to set another three variables called:
- `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_protocols`,
- `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_prefer_server_ciphers`
- `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_ciphers`
Also a new task is added to validate the SSL configuration variable.
The regex introduced in 63a49bb2dc seems to take precedence
over the bare location blocks, causing a regression.
> It is important to understand that, by default, Nginx will serve regular expression matches in preference to prefix matches.
> However, it evaluates prefix locations first, allowing for the administer to override this tendency by specifying locations using the = and ^~ modifiers.
Source: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding-nginx-server-and-location-block-selection-algorithms
In #628 I proposed a CORS change that turns out not to be the root of the issue. Caffeine-addled diagnosis leads to sloppy thinking, and this change should be reverted. In fact, if left it will cause problems for new installations.
Even with the v2 updates listed in #503 and partially addressed in #614, this is still needed to enable identity services to function with Element Desktop/Web. Testing on multiple clients with a clean config has confirmed this, at least for my installation.
Fix regression since 2a50b8b6bb (#597).
Dimension is intended to be embedded in various clients,
be it the Element service that we host (at element.DOMAIN),
some other Element (element-desktop running locally), etc.
· 😅 How to keep this in sync with the matrix-synapse documentation?
· regex location matching is expensive
· nginx syntax limit: one location only per block / statement
· thus, lots of duplicate statements in this file
Continuation of #234 (Github Pull Request).
I had unintentionally updated the documentation for the feature,
saying the page is available at `https://matrix.DOMAIN/nginx_status`.
Looks like it wasn't the case, going against my expectations.
I'm correcting this with this patch.
The status page is being made available on both HTTP and HTTPS.
Serving over HTTP is likely necessary for services like
Longview
(https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/longview/longview-app-for-nginx/)
`matrix_nginx_proxy_data_path` has always served as a base path,
so we're renaming it to reflect that.
Along with this, we're also introducing a new "data path" variable
(`matrix_nginx_proxy_data_path`), which is really a data path this time.
It's used for storing additional, non-configuration, files related to
matrix-nginx-proxy.
If someone decides to not use `/.well-known/matrix/server` and only
relies on SRV records, then they would need to serve tcp/8448 using
a certificate for the base domain (not for the matrix) domain.
Until now, they could do that by giving the certificate to Synapse
and setting it terminate TLS. That makes swapping certificates
more annoying (Synapse requires a restart to re-read certificates),
so it's better if we can support it via matrix-nginx-proxy.
Mounting certificates (or any other file) into the matrix-nginx-proxy container
can be done with `matrix_nginx_proxy_container_additional_volumes`,
introduced in 96afbbb5a.
This makes all containers (except mautrix-telegram and
mautrix-whatsapp), start as a non-root user.
We do this, because we don't trust some of the images.
In any case, we'd rather not trust ALL images and avoid giving
`root` access at all. We can't be sure they would drop privileges
or what they might do before they do it.
Because Postfix doesn't support running as non-root,
it had to be replaced by an Exim mail server.
The matrix-nginx-proxy nginx container image is patched up
(by replacing its main configuration) so that it can work as non-root.
It seems like there's no other good image that we can use and that is up-to-date
(https://hub.docker.com/r/nginxinc/nginx-unprivileged is outdated).
Likewise for riot-web (https://hub.docker.com/r/bubuntux/riot-web/),
we patch it up ourselves when starting (replacing the main nginx
configuration).
Ideally, it would be fixed upstream so we can simplify.
teutat3s
