Nginx SSL Configuration

Let’s say we have an Nginx virtual host like following

server {
    listen   80;
    root /var/www/html;
    server_name serverok.in;
    index index.htm index.html;
}

To make it SSL enabled, add the following to the server entry.

    listen 443 ssl http2;
    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/serverok.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/serverok.key;
    ssl_client_certificate /etc/ssl/serverok.ca;

ssl_client_certificate introduced in Nginx version 1.19.4. If you are using an older version, add your ca-bundle after SSL certificate.

Example

server {
    listen   80;
    root /var/www/html;
    server_name serverok.in;
    index index.htm index.html;
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/serverok.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/serverok.key;
    ssl_client_certificate /etc/ssl/serverok.ca;
    location / {
        try_files $uri/index.html $uri.html $uri;
    }
}

SSL protocols

ssl_session_cache shared:le_nginx_SSL:10m;
ssl_session_timeout 1440m;
ssl_session_tickets off;

ssl_protocols TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

ssl_ciphers "ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS";

dhparam

Create

openssl dhparam -out /etc/ssl/dhparam.pem 2048

In your nginx config, add

ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/dhparam.pem;

Redirect Traffic to SSL

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name  www.serverok.in serverok.in;
    return       301 https://serverok.in$request_uri;
}

If you don’t want to redirect SSL verification requests to HTTPS, use

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name  DOMAIN_NAME;
    location ~ ^/.well-known/ {
        allow all;
        autoindex on;
        root /var/www/html;
    }
    location / {
        return 301 https://DOMAIN_NAME$request_uri;
    }
}

Disable TLSv1 in Nginx
Nginx Proxy SSL Verification
Nginx Redirect HTTP to HTTPS