TLS proxy

An optional TLS proxy for terminating HTTPS connections, using NGINX.

Run bin/init --tls to initialise local configuration with NGINX proxy configuration, or to add nginx proxy configuration to an existing local configuration. A sample private key is created in config/nginx/certs/overleaf_key.pem and a dummy certificate in config/nginx/certs/overleaf_certificate.pem. Either replace these with your actual private key and certificate, or set the values of the TLS_PRIVATE_KEY_PATH and TLS_CERTIFICATE_PATH variables to the paths of your actual private key and certificate respectively.

A default config for NGINX is provided in config/nginx/nginx.conf which may be customised to your requirements. The path to the config file can be changed with the NGINX_CONFIG_PATH variable.

In order for Overleaf to run correctly behind the proxy, the following variables should be uncommented in config/variables.env

OVERLEAF_BEHIND_PROXY=true
OVERLEAF_SECURE_COOKIE=true

Add the following section to your config/overleaf.rc file if it is not there already:

# TLS proxy configuration (optional)
NGINX_ENABLED=false
NGINX_CONFIG_PATH=config/nginx/nginx.conf
NGINX_HTTP_PORT=80
# Replace these IP addresses with the external IP address of your host
NGINX_HTTP_LISTEN_IP=127.0.1.1 
NGINX_TLS_LISTEN_IP=127.0.1.1
TLS_PRIVATE_KEY_PATH=config/nginx/certs/overleaf_key.pem
TLS_CERTIFICATE_PATH=config/nginx/certs/overleaf_certificate.pem
TLS_PORT=443

In order to run the proxy, change the value of the NGINX_ENABLED variable in config/overleaf.rc from false to true and re-run bin/up.

By default, the HTTPS web interface will be available on https://127.0.1.1:443. Connections to http://127.0.1.1:80 will be redirected to https://127.0.1.1:443. To change the IP address that NGINX listens on, set the NGINX_HTTP_LISTEN_IP and NGINX_TLS_LISTEN_IP variables. The ports can be changed via the NGINX_HTTP_PORT and TLS_PORT variables.

If NGINX fails to start with the error message Error starting userland proxy: listen tcp4 ... bind: address already in use ensure that OVERLEAF_LISTEN_IP:OVERLEAF_PORT does not overlap with NGINX_HTTP_LISTEN_IP:NGINX_HTTP_PORT.