NGINX and SSL Enforcement Through Routes in Rails - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have the following snippet that works fine on Heroku (production) for enforcing SSL:
# /config/routes.rb
scope protocol: 'https://', constraints: { protocol: 'https://' } do
resource :user
resource :session
end
I'm trying to setup a development machine using NGINX and passenger with SSL, however I get:
Action Controller: Exception
No Route Matches [GET] "/session/new"
I get a green SSL in Chrome when browsing to other sections of the application with HTTPS, so it appears SSL is working. For some reason enforcing through the routes is not matching correctly though. My nginx.conf is:
worker_processes 4;
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
gzip on;
sendfile on;
include mime.types;
ssl_certificate cert.crt;
ssl_certificate_key cert.key;
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
ssl_session_timeout 10m;
keepalive_timeout 60;
rack_env development;
passenger_user kevin;
passenger_root /Users/kevin/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/passenger-3.0.9;
passenger_ruby /Users/kevin/.rvm/wrappers/default/ruby;
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name local.demo;
location / {
root /Users/kevin/Sites/demo/public;
passenger_enabled on;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
}
}
}
Any ideas how to fix it?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if this is the right approach for your problem but in my nginx.conf I'll tend
to fore-rewrite the URL-space I'd like to default to https:
server {
listen 80;
server_name local.demo;
rewrite ^(.*)$ https://local.demo$1 permanent;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name local.demo;
location / {
root /Users/kevin/Sites/demo/public;
passenger_enabled on;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
}
}
This setup will force any requests on http://local.demo/ to go through https://local.demo.
Alternatively you can be more specific and filter on a location or pattern match basis:
location ~ ^/sslrequired/(.*)$ {
rewrite ^(.*)$ https://local.demo/$1 permanent;
}
In a generic way it can be considered a workaround but why not let the server enforce
the SSL when you intend the user to actually use it ;)
For more information you may want to look at the HttpRewriteModule at the nginx wiki.
I hope this is helpful for your case.