Nginx to allow only POST requests for certain URL's

Question

I have an application which will be served using GET & POST method's. For better security, I have configured Nginx to serve the pages using only POST requests. Below is the config I have used in Nginx.

Config in Nginx: if ($request_method !~ ^(POST)$ ){ return 404; }

This is working perfectly. Now, I wanted to change above configuration in Nginx to serve certain pages with both GET & POST requests. But, I am unable to do it.

I have used lot of combinations, but no luck.

Can some one please help me in configuring nginx for the same.

Below is my Nginx configuration file.

Note: I am using Nginx (at front end) as a webserver and apache (at back end) for serving application. I have configured nginx to redirect the web pages requested to apache successfully.

#user  nobody;
worker_processes  1;
#error_log   logs/error.log;
#error_log  logs/error.log  notice;
#error_log  logs/error.log  info;

#pid        logs/nginx.pid;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    #log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
    #                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
    #                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    #access_log  logs/access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    #tcp_nopush     on;

    #keepalive_timeout  0;
    keepalive_timeout  65;

    #gzip  on;

    server {
        listen       8081;
        server_name  localhost;

        #charset koi8-r;

        access_log  /logs/host.access.log;

        location /WebGoat {
            #root   html;
            #index  index.html index.htm;
            proxy_pass http://localhost:8080/WebGoat/;  
        }
    
        location /application { ##sample project
            #root   html;
            #index  index.html index.htm;
            if ($request_method !~ ^(POST)$){
                return 404;
            }
            proxy_pass http://localhost:8080/application/;   
        }
    
       location ~ ^register\.html {##register.html page should be served with GET & POST requests
           if ($request_method !~ ^(GET|POST)$){
               return 500;
           }
        }


        #error_page  404              /404.html;

        # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
        #
        error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
        location = /50x.html {
            root   html;
        }

        # proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80
        #
        #location ~ \.php$ {
        #    proxy_pass   http://127.0.0.1;
        #}

        # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
        #
        #location ~ \.php$ {
        #    root           html;
        #    fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
        #    fastcgi_index  index.php;
        #    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  /scripts$fastcgi_script_name;
        #    include        fastcgi_params;
        #}

        # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
        # concurs with nginx's one
        #
        #location ~ /\.ht {
        #    deny  all;
        #}
    }


    # another virtual host using mix of IP-, name-, and port-based configuration
    #
    #server {
    #    listen       8000;
    #    listen       somename:8080;
    #    server_name  somename  alias  another.alias;

    #    location / {
    #        root   html;
    #        index  index.html index.htm;
    #    }
    #}


    # HTTPS server
    #
    #server {
    #    listen       443;
    #    server_name  localhost;

    #    ssl                  on;
    #    ssl_certificate      cert.pem;
    #    ssl_certificate_key  cert.key;

    #    ssl_session_timeout  5m;

    #    ssl_protocols  SSLv2 SSLv3 TLSv1;
    #    ssl_ciphers  HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
    #    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;

    #    location / {
    #        root   html;
    #        index  index.html index.htm;
    #    }
    #}
}

Thanks in Advance, Sandeep

Answer 1

I would write something like this:

location /application {
    proxy_pass http://<host>;
    limit_except POST {
        deny all;
    }
}

## Below three pages should be served with GET & POST
location ~ ^/application/(RegisterServet|pd|LoginServlet)$ {
    proxy_pass http://<host>;
}

Changes:

• There is almost no reason to write limit_except GET POST. A don't think that it's important to you to forbid OPTIONS request to these addresses.
• Do you really want to allow urls like /APPLICATION/Pd/? I don't think so, and I've changed ~* to ~.
• Removed path parts from proxy_pass, so nginx will proxy original path.
• Removed named location.

Answer 2

Easy way to allow only required request methods

if ($request_method !~ ^(GET|HEAD)$ ) {
return 444;
}