NGINX Pass-through server header

Question

How do I get NGINX to pass through the 'server' header of upstream servers?

Like, if NGINX is proxying to an Apache server with the Server header 'Apache2.2 (CentOS)', it strips it out and replaces it with 'NGINX/1.0.1'. We have our machine ID's in our Server: headers so we need to get NGINX to stop over-writing them.

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 15 '18 at 15:56

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The directive proxy_pass_header does exactly what you want:

proxy_pass_header Server;

answered Oct 15 '18 at 15:56

Benoit Blanchon

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This works fine and should be the accepted answer (tested with `nginx/1.16.1`) – ThiefMaster May 23 '20 at 10:05

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 12 '11 at 02:32

Nginx does not have a way to turn off the server header, the closest option is the server token directive but this only turns off the version number.

I have never actually tried this, but the proxy_pass_header directive might allow you to specify the Server header as something that should be passed on to the client.

I'd personally recommend sending the machine ID in a custom header designed for it (X-WHATEVER) as using a RFC defined header for behaviour other than what it's designed for is bound to bite you eventually.

If proxy_pass_header doesn't work then I'm pretty sure the only alternative is that you patch the Nginx source to not overwrite it.

I didn't write the software (Personally I think it's a stupid idea but anyway. I'll have a play around with the proxy_pass_header and if all else fails start messing around in the source code =) — , Jun 12 '11 at 10:06

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 02 '14 at 16:39

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Any headers from the original response might be preserved using the $upstream_http_* variables, for your case:

add_header Server $upstream_http_server;

answered Jun 02 '14 at 16:39

arutemus

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This adds an *additional* "Server" header, rather than replacing the nginx one. – Oren Chapo Jun 10 '19 at 13:28

NGINX Pass-through server header

3 Answers3