Security certificate and TLS optimization in Nginx reverse proxy

Nginx is a high-performance HTTP server and reverse proxy server that can be used to simplify website architecture and optimize network requests. During the reverse proxy process, security certificates and TLS optimization are important factors that can improve the security and performance of your website. This article will introduce relevant knowledge about security certificates and TLS optimization in Nginx reverse proxy.

1. Security Certificate

1.1 What is a security certificate?

Security certificates are digital certificates used for authentication, data encryption, and data integrity protection when accessing websites. Common security certificates include SSL and TLS certificates, which can ensure the security of network communications. When the client accesses the server through the HTTPS protocol, the server will automatically display the security certificate to the client. If the certificate is trustworthy, a secure channel will be established to continue communication. Otherwise, the client will prompt the user that the website is risky and refuse the connection.

1.2 Types of security certificates

When deploying security certificates, you need to select the appropriate certificate type to meet business needs. The current mainstream security certificates include the following:

Self-signed certificate: a security certificate issued by a certificate authority created by yourself, and does not need to be certified by a third-party verification agency. But a self-signed certificate may indicate that the client website is at risk because it is not trusted by a third party.

DV certificate: Domain name verification certificate, which only needs to verify the ownership of the domain name, verified by email or Domain Name System (DNS). DV certificates can be issued quickly and are often used for personal websites or small businesses.

OV certificate: Organization verification certificate, which requires verification of the organization or enterprise information of the website and certification by phone or fax. OV certificates are more secure and reliable than DV certificates and are usually used by small and medium-sized enterprises or e-commerce websites.

EV certificate: Enhanced verification certificate, which is the highest level of security certificate. It needs to verify the corporate information of the website. It can be verified by email and phone. At the same time, official company documents need to be submitted for verification. The verification process of EV certificates is relatively strict, which can improve the credibility and security of the website.

1.3 Deployment of security certificate

When using Nginx reverse proxy server, deploying a security certificate is a key step to ensure network security. Among them, the most commonly used security certificate is the SSL certificate. The following are the steps to deploy a security certificate:

Step one: Install certificate-related software on the server, such as openssl, libssl-dev, libssl-dev, etc.

Step 2: Generate a certificate, private key and certificate signing request (CSR). The certificate signing request needs to be submitted to the digital certificate issuing authority for certification.

Step 3: After the issuing authority signs and confirms the CSR, it returns the SSL certificate, which can be verified using openssl.

Step 4: Set security certificate related parameters in the Nginx configuration file, such as ssl_certificate and ssl_certificate_key. Note that the certificate path must be specified.

Step 5: Reload the Nginx server and check whether the certificate has taken effect.

2. TLS optimization

2.1 What is TLS?

TLS is the Transport Layer Security Protocol, a subsequent version of SSL, which is used to securely encrypt and authenticate network communications. The TLS protocol can ensure key security, data integrity and authentication of network communications, and prevent network security issues such as man-in-the-middle attacks, eavesdropping and tampering. The TLS protocol is the core of the HTTPS protocol and can improve the security and stability of network communications.

2.2 TLS optimization solution

In the Nginx reverse proxy, the efficiency and performance of the HTTPS protocol can be improved through the optimization of the TLS protocol. The following are commonly used TLS optimization solutions:

Enable SNI extension of TLS protocol: SNI extension is a TLS protocol extension for using multiple SSL certificates on the same server, which can support multiple domain names sharing the same IP address, improving server efficiency and flexibility.

Turn off unsafe protocol versions: For example, SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0 and other protocol versions. These protocols have security issues and have been classified as unsafe protocols. Turning them off can improve security and performance.

Enable Session Resumption of TLS protocol: Session resumption is an optimization feature of the TLS protocol that speeds up encrypted communications by sharing previously exchanged keys between the client and server.

Enable OCSP Stapling: OCSP Stapling is a TLS protocol extension used to quickly verify the status of the SSL certificate. It can prevent the SSL certificate from being revoked or forged, and improve network security and speed.

Enable Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) of the TLS protocol: PFS is a secure and reliable key agreement mechanism that can generate a unique key in each session, increasing the difficulty and security of cracking.

2.3 Implementation of TLS optimization

In the Nginx reverse proxy, TLS optimization can be achieved by adding the ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on and ssl_ciphers parameters in the configuration file. Here are some commonly used configuration examples:

Enable the SNI extension of the TLS protocol:

server {

listen 443 ssl;
server_name example.com;
ssl_certificate /path/to/certificate.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/private.key;
ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
ssl_session_tickets off;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256';

# Other configurations

}

Turn off insecure protocol versions:

ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;

Enable Session Resumption of TLS protocol:

ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
ssl_session_tickets off;

Enable OCSP Stapling:

ssl_stapling on;
ssl_stapling_verify on;
ssl_trusted_certificate /path/to/trusted.crt;

Enable PFS:

ssl_ecdh_curve secp384r1;

Through the above configuration, the TLS protocol can be optimized and the performance and security of network communication can be improved. When deploying Nginx reverse proxy, be sure to pay attention to the configuration of the security certificate and TLS protocol to improve the security and network performance of the reverse proxy server.

The above is the detailed content of Security certificate and TLS optimization in Nginx reverse proxy. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!