Tell lighttpd used protocol (HTTPS) when Nginx reverse proxy is in front - https

Question

I have a Nginx reverse proxy redirecting to a lighttpd server in the same machine. This reverse proxy works on HTTPS so I want to tell to lighttpd that HTTPS is being used as protocol instead of HTTP. Here is my Nginx confuguration.
server {
server_name mydomain.com;
merge_slashes off;
rewrite ^(.*?)//+(.*?)$ $1/$2 permanent;
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8088/;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
}
listen [::]:443 ssl ipv6only=on; # managed by Certbot
listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
# SSL settings
}
server {
if ($host = mydomain.com) {
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
}
The lighttpd server is running a python application that uses web.py module but the returned value by web.ctx.protocol still is HTTP when it should be HTTPS. It looks like lighttpd ignores the X-Forwarded-Proto header sent by Nginx.
What am I doing wrong? Is there any additional configuration to be done?
Thanks.

Answer 1

You have to configure lighttpd to trust headers from upstream. Use mod_extforward in lighttpd. See https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/Docs_ModExtForward
Better than your many headers above, both nginx and lighttpd (via mod_extforward) support RFC 7239 Forwarded header.
https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/examples/forwarded/
Use of the "Forwarded" header should be preferred.