Nginx Docker-Compose root-less read-only

You can run Nginx as a non-root user inside of Docker

The era of website defacement is long gone, but it’s worth mentioning that read-only config and mounts are also viable.

Docker-Compose file and quick documentation

version: '3'

services:
  nginx:
    image: nginx:stable-alpine
    user: '1042:1042'
    volumes:
      - ./html/www:/var/www/html/www/:ro
      - ./conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d:ro
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:ro
    ports:
      - "0.0.0.0:6666:80"
    networks:
      - default
    command: ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]

networks:
  default:
    driver: bridge

https://hub.docker.com/_/nginx

This starts a stable Nginx docker (Alpine)
user is not root, but 1042, same for the group (ID)
volumes get mapped as read-only
- web root
- config
listener is on 6666

Relevant parts on nginx.conf

# user  www;

#error_log  logs/error.log;
#error_log  logs/error.log  notice;
#error_log  logs/error.log  info;
#error_log  syslog:server=unix:/dev/log,severity=notice;

pid        /tmp/nginx.pid;

worker_rlimit_nofile 1024;
...

No user definition here in the .conf
Error logging not via Syslog or file
pid to tmp

http {

    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;
    client_max_body_size 100M;
    #log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
    #                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
    #                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    #access_log  logs/access.log  main;
    #access_log  syslog:server=unix:/dev/log,severity=notice main;

    tcp_nopush     on;

    # keepalive_timeout  0;
    # keepalive_timeout  65;
    gzip  on;
    server_tokens off;

    # include "/usr/local/share/nginx/naxsi_core.rules";

    client_body_temp_path /tmp/client_temp;
    proxy_temp_path       /tmp/proxy_temp_path;
    fastcgi_temp_path     /tmp/fastcgi_temp;
    uwsgi_temp_path       /tmp/uwsgi_temp;
    scgi_temp_path        /tmp/scgi_temp;

mostly a standard config
several paths go to /tmp/

again: different error logging needed
root is defined: the read-only mount

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Nginx Docker-Compose root-less read-only

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Docker-Compose file and quick documentation

Relevant parts on nginx.conf

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