nginx

Nginx

Nginx is the orchestrator of the server behind-the-scenes and responsible for the following:

• Reverse proxy (i.e. URL redirection)
• SSL certificates for encrypted HTTPS traffic
• Public folder: all data in this folder is available to be browsed and downloaded at /public
• Favicons
• Custom HTML pages, including 502 error page (shown when ShinyProxy is not responding)

Nginx configuration is scattered along the following .config files:

File	Description
nginx.conf	Main configuration
shinyproxy.conf	ShinyProxy-specific configuration
location_apps.conf	Custom URL paths for ShinyProxy apps
location_utils.conf	Utilities
favicon.conf	Favicons
error.conf	Custom error page
public.conf	Public folder

SSL certificate renewal

SSL certificates need to be renewed frequently (e.g. every year). To do so:

1. Update the SSL certificate files

2. In case the filename of the SSL certificate changes, open nginx.conf and replace the path to the certificates (in ssl_certificate and ssl_certificate_key)

3. Manually restart Nginx with the command docker compose restart nginx

Public folder

All files and directories in public will be publicly visible and available to download in the /public path of the website.

This can be configured in public.config.

Favicons

Favicon files are available in favicon. Nginx serves these files in multiple standard paths (e.g. /favicon.ico) as instructed in favicon.conf. ShinyProxy templates directly include the path to the icons in their HTML: ../shinyproxy/templates/fragments/head.html.

To change the favicons of the website, simply replace the favicon files and refresh the page. Tools like Favicon checker allow to test the favicons of a website.

Custom HTML pages (e.g. 502 error page)

Custom HTML pages served via Nginx are located in html.

When ShinyProxy is restarting, overloaded or not properly communicating with Nginx, a custom 502 error is shown warning users that the server is currently having issues. This page can be previewed at any time in /error_50x.html.

Any errors that occur while ShinyProxy is running (e.g. going to a page that does not exist or if a container is not responding) can be customised via ShinyProxy HTML templates.