https-forward

(Watch a video about https-forward!)

Provides a forwarding HTTPS server which transparently fetches and caches certificates via Let's Encrypt. This must run on 443 and 80 (http:// just forwards to https://, no forwarding happens unencrypted) and can't coexist with any other web server on your machine.

Why

This is so you can host random and long-lived services publicly on the internet—perfect for other services which are served on http://, don't care about certificates or HTTPS at all, and might be provided by Node or Go on a random high port (e.g., some dumb service running on localhost:8080).

Note! This doesn't magic up domain names. You would use this service only if you're able to point DNS records to the IP address of a machine you're running this on, and that the machine is able to handle incoming requests on port 443 and 80 (e.g., on a home network, you'd have to set up port forwarding on your router).

Install

⚠️ You should probably install this via Snap if you're using Ubuntu or something like it.

Otherwise, you can build the Go binary and see --help for flags. You should restrict the binary's permissions or run it as nobody with a setcap configuration that lets it listen on low ports.

Configuration

If you're using Snap, the configuration file is at /var/snap/https-forward/common/config (which is empty after install). Otherwise, the default configuration is read at /etc/https-forward.

Either way, it should be authored like this:

# hostname            forward-to          optional-basic-auth
host.example.com      localhost:8080
blah.example.com      192.168.86.24:7999  user:pass
user-only.example.com localhost:9002      user       # accepts any password

# Specify host with '.' to suffix all following
.example.com
test                  localhost:9000
under-example         any-hostname-here.com:9000

# Clear the current suffix with a single "." (otherwise below would be "*.example.com.example.com")
.

# You can include ? or * to glob-match domain parts (this does NOT match "-")
*.example.com         localhost:9000
test-v?*.example.com  localhost:9999    # matches "test-v1", "test-v100", but NOT "test-v" or "test-vx-123"

# serves a blank dummy page (but generate https cert, perhaps as a placeholder)
serves-nothing.example.com

(example.com used above purely as an example. You'd replace it with a domain name you controlled, preferably with a wildcard DNS record like *.example.com.)

Restart or send SIGHUP to the binary to reread the config file.

Notes

If incoming HTTPS requests take a long time and then fail, Let's Encrypt might have throttled you. Unfortunately, the autocert client in Go isn't very verbose about this. This happens on a per-domain basis (rather than say, from your client IP), so just try a new domain (even a subdomain).

This service only forwards to http:// hosts, not secure hosts.

Release Instructions

Follow the guide for Go applications. Run snapcraft and it will probably just build.