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PIVX Nginx Proxy

This repo allows exposing a PIVX JSON-RPC server to remote hosts using nginx as a reverse proxy. For security purpose, a PIVX client exposes the JSON-RPC service only to localhost interface. In some cases, it can be interesting to expose JSON-RPC to remote hosts but with limited access.

This solution is to use a LUA script, used with nginx-lua-module to control access to the upstream pivx client. You can blacklist or whitelist certain JSON-RPC methods (for example, authorize only JSON-RPC requests to sendrawtransaction to allow remote hosts to send transactions to the client, without allowing them to read states in the chain).

Why nginx?

nginx has some interesting characteristics as a reverse proxy on top of PIVX JSON-RPC service:

  • Can expose the JSON-RPC service through a TLS channel
  • Can load balance between multiple JSON-RPC backends
  • Can plug standard authentication on top of the JSON-RPC interface (basic authentication, TLS mutual authentication, ...)

How does it work

The script pivx-jsonrpc-access.lua must be put in a location of your nginx, to be used from access_by_lua_file directive. In order to have a fully functional nginx proxy, you need:

  • PIVX core wallet
  • nginx equipped with:
    • lua-nginx-module, see the setup here.
    • cjson lua package installed, see here
  • [Alternatively] openresty default nginx binaries already come with the required plugins (see below "Easy Install")

You have to set one of jsonrpc_whitelist or jsonrpc_blacklist nginx variable to restrict the list of JSON-RPC methods available for this location, separated by commas:

location / {
  set $jsonrpc_whitelist 'decodemasternodebroadcast,relaymasternodebroadcast,sendrawtransaction';
  access_by_lua_file 'pivx-jsonrpc-access.lua';
  proxy_pass http://localhost:51473;
}

With the configuration above, only decodemasternodebroadcast, relaymasternodebroadcast, sendrawtransaction calls will be fowarded to JSON-RPC interface at http://localhost:51473, other requests will be rejected with HTTP 403 status.

You can find a full nginx.conf example file in the repo.


Easy Install

The following guide is intended for Ubuntu 16.04 servers and can be easily adapted for other linux versions.


Requirements

Make sure to have a PIVX full node running with the following pivx.conf configuration (replace myRpcUser and myRpcPass with random credentials):

txindex=1
server=1
rpcuser=myRpcUser
rpcpassword=myRpcPass
daemon=1
logtimestamps=1
maxconnections=256

Make sure to have webdomain (for the purpose of this guide myexampledomain.com will be used) and an A RECORD pointing to the IP of your VPS.


Packages

Install the following package (for the add-apt-repository command):

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install software-properties-common

Add openresty GPG key:

wget -qO - https://openresty.org/package/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Add the official openresty APT repository and install the package (then disable it for now)

sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb http://openresty.org/package/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main"

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install openresty
sudo systemctl disable openresty

Add the official APT certbot repository and install the package

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install certbot

Configuration

1. Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/random-zebra/PIVX-NGINX_proxy.git

2. Create the required folders and copy the files (nginx configuration file and lua script)

mkdir nginx-proxy && cd nginx-proxy && mkdir conf && mkdir logs

cp ../PIVX-NGINX_proxy/nginx.conf conf/
cp ../PIVX-NGINX_proxy/pivx-jsonrpc-access.lua conf/

3. Allow port 80 on ufw (if enabled) and obtain a certificate for your domain myexampledomain.com with certbot (after that, port 80 can be disabled again)

sudo certbot certonly --standalone -d myexampledomain.com

Copy the certificates (replacing myexampledomain.com with your actual domain)

sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/myexampledomain.com/fullchain.pem conf/fullchain.pem
sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/myexampledomain.com/privkey.pem conf/privkey.pem

4. Create a .htpasswd to store the credentials that will be used to query this server (in this example the username is myProxyUser, replace it with one of your choice and type a password when prompted):

sudo htpasswd -c conf/.htpasswd myProxyUser

5. Encode Base64 the rpc credentials that you set in your pivx.conf.
Run this command (replacing myRpcUser and myRpcPass) and save the output string which will be copied inside nginx.conf file:

echo -n "myRpcUser:myRpcPass" | base64

6. Open Nginx configuration file. 

sudo nano conf/nginx.conf
  • Replace server_name _; with your domain, e.g.
server_name  myexampledomain.com;
  • Replace xxxxxxxxx== with the base64 encoded string you obtained at point (5) here
proxy_set_header Authorization "Basic xxxxxxxxx==";

Close and give permissions to the user which will run the server (e.g. www-data)

sudo chown www-data: -R .

Usage

This setup uses port 8080. Make sure to allow such port on ufw or change it inside nginx.conf.
From the nginx-proxy folder, with the linux-user allowed (e.g. www-data) start the server with:

openresty -p `pwd`/ -c conf/nginx.conf
  • To follow the logs:
tail -f logs/access.log
tail -f logs/error.log
  • To reload the server (after editing nginx.conf):
openresty -p `pwd`/ -c conf/nginx.conf -s reload
  • To stop the server:
openresty -p `pwd`/ -c conf/nginx.conf -s stop

Testing

You can test your server, for example, asking for the sync status:

curl --user myProxyUser --data-binary '{"jsonrpc": "1.0", "id": "nginxtest", "method": "mnsync", "params": ["status"] }' -H 'content-type: text/plain;' https://myexampledomain.com:8080/

and receiving an output like this:

{
  "result":{
    "IsBlockchainSynced":true,
    "lastMasternodeList":1539912115,
    "lastMasternodeWinner":1539914694,
    "lastBudgetItem":1539910982,
    "lastFailure":0,
    "nCountFailures":0,
    "sumMasternodeList":0,
    "sumMasternodeWinner":25779,
    "sumBudgetItemProp":19707,
    "sumBudgetItemFin":11759,
    "countMasternodeList":0,
    "countMasternodeWinner":4,
    "countBudgetItemProp":5,
    "countBudgetItemFin":5,
    "RequestedMasternodeAssets":999,
    "RequestedMasternodeAttempt":0
  },
  "error":null,
  "id":"nginxtest"
}