Reverse Proxy Configuration

ownCloud can be run through a reverse proxy, which can cache static assets such as images, CSS, or Javascript files, move the load of handling HTTPS to a different server or load balance between multiple servers.

For security, you must explicitly define the proxy servers that ownCloud is to trust. Connections from trusted proxies will be specially treated to get the real client information, for use in access control and logging. Parameters are configured in config/config.php

Set the trusted_proxies parameter as an array of IP address to define the servers ownCloud should trust as proxies. This parameter provides protection against client spoofing, and you should secure those servers as you would your ownCloud server.

A reverse proxy can define HTTP headers with the original client IP address, and ownCloud can use those headers to retrieve that IP address. ownCloud uses the de-facto standard header X-Forwarded-For by default, but this can be configured with the forwarded_for_headers parameter. This parameter is an array of PHP lookup strings, for example X-Forwarded-For becomes HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR. Incorrectly setting this parameter may allow clients to spoof their IP address as visible to ownCloud, even when going through the trusted proxy! The correct value for this parameter is dependent on your proxy software.

The automatic hostname, protocol or webroot detection of ownCloud can fail in certain reverse proxy situations. This configuration allows the automatic detection to be manually overridden.

If ownCloud fails to automatically detect the hostname, protocol or webroot you can use the overwrite parameters inside the config/config.php. The overwritehost parameter is used to set the hostname of the proxy. You can also specify a port. The overwriteprotocol parameter is used to set the protocol of the proxy. You can choose between the two options HTTP and HTTPS. The overwritewebroot parameter is used to set the absolute web path of the proxy to the ownCloud folder. When you want to keep the automatic detection of one of the three parameters you can leave the value empty or don’t set it. The overwritecondaddr parameter is used to overwrite the values dependent on the remote address. The value must be a regular expression of the IP addresses of the proxy. This is useful when you use a reverse SSL proxy only for HTTPS access and you want to use the automatic detection for HTTP access.