Where should the passwords file be located for nginx - windows

Question

I am following the elasticsearch nginx integration tutorial for windows. I have generated the password using openssl.
The question is what should be the extension for the passwords file and where should it be placed.
I keep getting this error message but it is very unclear to me what exactly the issue is
C:\Program Files\nginx-1.12.1\nginx-1.12.1>nginx -s reload nginx:
[error] OpenEvent("Global\ngx_reload_4428") failed (2: The system
cannot find the file specified)
Currently, the file is present inside the configs directory
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
upstream elasticsearch {
server 127.0.0.1:9200;
}
server {
listen 8080;
auth_basic "Protected Elasticsearch";
auth_basic_user_file passwords;
location / {
proxy_pass http://elasticsearch;
proxy_redirect off;
}
}
}

Answer 1

You have to specify full path for the password file location:
location / {
auth_basic "Secure Area (or whatever description you want)";
auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/auth/nginx.passwd;
... (other settings)
}
The example above works on Unix/Linux servers running nginx. Since you're running Windows I suppose you have to specify full path like C:\Program Files\nginx-1.12.1\nginx-1.12.1\nginx.passwd
Depending what exactly you want to restrict you might need to place the rule inside or outside of the location / {} block. Supposing you need to allow full access to your server/site and only restrict let's say /private then you will add the basic auth in:
location /private {
...
}