Proxying with nginx

Install Nginx

You'll need a version of Nginx capable of proxying websocket traffic. Anything 1.3 or newer should work.

To install the latest Nginx you can either:

• build it from source
• get a packaged-for-your-distro option

Both options are documented on the nginx wiki.

###Configure Nginx In Nginx you need 3 items in your config:

1. Upstream IP + port to the websocketproxy.py server

   This is not strictly necessary but it makes the configuration more readable. You could also explicitly specify the server in your proxy_pass parameters.

   upstream vnc_proxy {
       server 127.0.0.1:6080;
   }
   

2. A path to /websockify to proxy the websocket connection.

   server {
       listen 80;
       server_name example.com;
       <other_config>
       location /websockify {
             proxy_http_version 1.1;
             proxy_pass http://vnc_proxy/;
             proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
             proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
   
             # VNC connection timeout
             proxy_read_timeout 61s;
   
             # Disable cache
             proxy_buffering off
       }
   

   As seen above, it is recommended to set a proxy_read_timeout greater than 60 seconds which is the default value. If not set you can end up in a race-condition which could cause a disconnection after inactivity longer than a minute. Read more here. To avoid unnecessary caching of the VNC stream proxy_buffering should be set to off.

3. A path to your base URL, where you want it to show up.

       location /vncws/ {
             proxy_pass http://vnc_proxy/;
             proxy_http_version 1.1;
             proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
             proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
       }
   
       <other_config>
   }
   

With this config, you can point your browser to http://example.com/vncws/vnc.html to use NoVNC. This configuration also works fine with https instead.