NGINX to reverse proxy websockets AND enable SSL (wss://)?

Have no fear, because a brave group of Ops Programmers have solved the situation with a brand spanking new nginx_tcp_proxy_module

Written in August 2012, so if you are from the future you should do your homework.

Prerequisites

Assumes you are using CentOS:

• Remove current instance of NGINX (suggest using dev server for this)
• If possible, save your old NGINX config files so you can re-use them (that includes your init.d/nginx script)
• yum install pcre pcre-devel openssl openssl-devel and any other necessary libs for building NGINX
• Get the nginx_tcp_proxy_module from GitHub here https://github.com/yaoweibin/nginx_tcp_proxy_module and remember the folder where you placed it (make sure it is not zipped)

Build Your New NGINX

Again, assumes CentOS:

• cd /usr/local/
• wget 'http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.2.1.tar.gz'
• tar -xzvf nginx-1.2.1.tar.gz
• cd nginx-1.2.1/
• patch -p1 < /path/to/nginx_tcp_proxy_module/tcp.patch
• ./configure --add-module=/path/to/nginx_tcp_proxy_module --with-http_ssl_module (you can add more modules if you need them)
• make
• make install

Optional:

• sudo /sbin/chkconfig nginx on

Set Up Nginx

Remember to copy over your old configuration files first if you want to re-use them.

Important: you will need to create a tcp {} directive at the highest level in your conf. Make sure it is not inside your http {} directive.

The example config below shows a single upstream websocket server, and two proxies for both SSL and Non-SSL.

tcp {
    upstream websockets {
        ## webbit websocket server in background
        server 127.0.0.1:5501;
        
        ## server 127.0.0.1:5502; ## add another server if you like!

        check interval=3000 rise=2 fall=5 timeout=1000;
    }   

    server {
        server_name _;
        listen 7070;

        timeout 43200000;
        websocket_connect_timeout 43200000;
        proxy_connect_timeout 43200000;

        so_keepalive on;
        tcp_nodelay on;

        websocket_pass websockets;
        websocket_buffer 1k;
    }

    server {
        server_name _;
        listen 7080;

        ssl on;
        ssl_certificate      /path/to/cert.pem;
        ssl_certificate_key  /path/to/key.key;

        timeout 43200000;
        websocket_connect_timeout 43200000;
        proxy_connect_timeout 43200000;

        so_keepalive on;
        tcp_nodelay on;

        websocket_pass websockets;
        websocket_buffer 1k;
    }
}

Just to note that nginx has now support for Websockets on the release 1.3.13. Example of use:

location /websocket/ {

    proxy_pass ​http://backend_host;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_read_timeout 86400;

}

You can also check the nginx changelog and the WebSocket proxying documentation.

This worked for me:

location / {
    # redirect all HTTP traffic to localhost:8080
    proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;

    # WebSocket support
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
}

-- borrowed from: https://github.com/nicokaiser/nginx-websocket-proxy/blob/df67cd92f71bfcb513b343beaa89cb33ab09fb05/simple-wss.conf