NGINX Proxy Manager

Setting Up NGINX Proxy Manager

NGINX Proxy Manager is a reverse proxy management system that allows you to easily forward traffic to your backend services. It provides a simple web interface for creating and managing proxy hosts, and it can also handle SSL certificate creation and renewal.

1. Creating the LXC Container

[!IMPORTANT] At the time of writing, there is a flow in Proxmox's support for Debian Trixie containers. We can fix this, by editing the line n° 39 in /usr/share/perl5/PVE/LXC/Setup/Debian.pm and replace die "unsupported debian version '$version'\n" if !($version >= 4 && $version <= 13); by die "unsupported debian version '$version'\n" if !($version >= 4 && $version <= 14); You will need to restart your PVE for the changes to take effect.

[!WARNING] I found Debian Trixie LXCs to be unreliable at the time of writing. They were sometimes not able to reach the internet.

1. Download a Debian Template:

   • In the Proxmox VE web UI, download a stable Debian template (e.g., Debian Bookworm).

   

   

   

2. Create a new LXC container with the following specifications:

   • Template: The Debian template you just downloaded.
   • CPU: 2 cores
   • RAM: 1 GB
   • Storage: 8 GB

   

   

   

   

   

2. Installing Docker

1. Log in to the LXC container's shell.

2. Install Docker Engine:

   • Follow the official Docker documentation to install Docker Engine on Debian. The following commands should get you started:

   # Add Docker's official GPG key:
   install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
   
   wget -qO /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg
   
   # Add the repository to Apt sources:
   echo \
     "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
     $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
     tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
   
   apt update
   apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
   

3. Verify the Docker installation:

   docker run hello-world
   

3. Setting Up NGINX Proxy Manager

1. Create the necessary directories:

   mkdir -p ~/nginx-proxy-manager
   cd ~/nginx-proxy-manager
   mkdir -p data/snippets letsencrypt
   

2. Create a docker-compose.yml file with the following content:

   networks:
     proxy_net:
       driver: bridge
   
   services:
     # NGINX Proxy Manager
     npm:
       container_name: nginx-proxy-manager
       image: jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest
       restart: unless-stopped
       networks:
         - proxy_net
       ports:
         - "80:80"     # HTTP
         - "81:81"     # NPM Admin UI
         - "443:443"   # HTTPS
       volumes:
         - ./data:/data
         - ./letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt
         - ./data/snippets:/snippets
       environment:
         TZ: "Europe/Paris"
   

3. Start the NGINX Proxy Manager container:

   docker compose up -d
   

4. Configuring SSL Certificates

1. Log in to the NGINX Proxy Manager web UI:

   • Navigate to http://<your-lxc-ip>:81.
   • Log in with the default credentials:
     • Email: admin@example.com
     • Password: changeme

2. Add a new SSL certificate:

   • Navigate to SSL Certificates > Add SSL Certificate > Let's Encrypt.
   • Fill in the following details:
     • Domain Names: yourdomain.com, *.yourdomain.com
     • Email Address: your-email@example.com
     • Use a DNS Challenge: Checked
     • DNS Provider: Your DNS provider (e.g., Cloudflare, GoDaddy, etc.)
     • Credentials: Your DNS provider's API credentials.
     • Agree to the Let's Encrypt Terms of Service.

   

3. Save the certificate.

[!IMPORTANT] When you configure your proxy hosts, remember to enable Websockets Support for services that require it (e.g., TrueNAS).

Next Steps

Now that NGINX Proxy Manager is set up, you can proceed to configure Authelia for single sign-on.

► Authelia