HTTP/S Forwarding/Outbound Proxy for outbound connections. #2479
Description
In some cases, a user may want to proxy all outbound connections, thru a specific IP/Hostname. At first it looked like the streams would be able to do so potentially, however, you must specify a resolvable host, and are unable to use Nginx built-in variables.
An example of where a forwarding/outbound proxy is useful:
Multiple phone systems that do not have a dedicated IP address. But the web application, such as a web softphone (ws/wss) needs to make an outbound connection and 'know' the public IP.
This allows a regular reverse proxy to allow inbound connections and a separate outbound/forwarding proxy to push data out with the shared IP.
Describe the solution you'd like
There appear to be 2 common ways to implement HTTP/S forwarding proxy, and streams appear to be one method, but there is no method to use built-in variables to specify custom configurations, and you are only able to specify real destinations. Allowing the use of $variables or adding a custom option like the forwarding proxy can resolve this issue.
Describe alternatives you've considered
Open to other ideas and suggestions.