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Password-protect access to an application with NGINX

To configure NGINX to request a username and password when accessing your application, follow these steps:

  • At the console, type the following commands. Remember to replace APPNAME, USERNAME and PASSWORD with your application name, desired username and desired password respectively.

      $ sudo apt-get update
      $ sudo apt-get install apache2-utils
      $ sudo htpasswd -cb /opt/bitnami/nginx/users USERNAME PASSWORD
    
  • Edit the /opt/bitnami/nginx/conf/server_blocks/APPNAME-server-block.conf and /opt/bitnami/nginx/conf/server_blocks/APPNAME-https-server-block.conf application configuration files NGINX and add a location block as shown below:

      location / {
          auth_basic "Restricted Area";
          auth_basic_user_file /opt/bitnami/nginx/users;
      }
    

    NOTE: If you don’t wish to protect the entire application, but only a sub-URL, create a new location block as shown above only for the sub-URL you wish to protect.

  • Restart the NGINX server:

      $ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart nginx
    

When accessing the application, you will see an authentication popup window. Enter the username and password defined in the first step:

To change the password later, run the htpasswd utility without the -c switch:

$ sudo htpasswd /opt/bitnami/users USERNAME
Last modification February 9, 2023