Test HTTP/2 using an Nginx Proxy

Do you want to test HTTP/2 without deploying any code? This is how to test HTTP/2.0 connections from your computer. This proxy will connect HTTP/2.0 then proxy that connection to your production or staging web server.

This is how to run an HTTP/2 proxy that uses HTTP/2 connections to your server. This will guide you on how to do it! By default the nginx.conf is setup to proxy to PubNub APIs. You can change this settings to point to your upstream servers.

The dockerfile comes ready with HTTP/2 Nginx. To change the upstream value, open nginx.conf and set the server to point to your domain. Re-run the build step for any changes you make to nginx.conf. The domain is currently set to pubsub.pubnub.com by default. The examples in this readme will use PubNub URLs for testing purposes.

Change your Upstream

Easily update the upstream to target your servers. Open nginx.conf and edit the line below.

## -----------------------------------------------------------------------
## Upstreams
## -----------------------------------------------------------------------
upstream pubnub_servers {
    ## Change pubsub.pubnub.com to your-server.com
    ## server your-server.com:80 max_fails=3;
    server pubsub.pubnub.com:80 max_fails=3; ## <------- Change this line
    keepalive 512;
}

Build and Run Docker

Build and run the dockerfile. This will launch an HTTPS server with HTTP/2.0 enabled. The access and error logs will print to STDOUT.

docker build -t http2 .
docker run -p 4443:4443 http2

Notice that HTTP/2.0 will show up in the logs if an HTTP/2 client is used. And HTTP/1.1 will show up for 1.1 client requests.

Config DNS

Add this line into your DNS override file.

sudo vi /etc/hosts

0.0.0.0     pubnubcoin.com

CURL Test

Test a url with HTTP/2. This example uses a PubNub URL.

pubnubcoin.com resolves to 0.0.0.0 for testing purposes.

curl https://pubnubcoin.com:4443/time/0 -v -k --http2 ## Verbose w/ Headers
curl https://pubnubcoin.com:4443/time/0    -k --http2 ## Output Response Only

Test PubNub With HTTP/1.1 Backward Compatible.

curl https://pubnubcoin.com:4443/time/0 -v -k --http1.1 ## Verbose w/ Headers
curl https://pubnubcoin.com:4443/time/0    -k --http1.1 ## Output Response Only

Browser Test

You need to add an exception for a self-signed certificate.

Go to: https://pubnubcoin.com:4443/time/0
Add exception to self-signed certificate.
Go to: https://www.pubnub.com/docs/console?channel=pubnub-twitter&origin=pubnubcoin.com:4443&sub=sub-c-78806dd4-42a6-11e4-aed8-02ee2ddab7fe
You should see HTTP/2 Traffic and JSON messages from Live Tweets.

HTTPS Testing via Python

Install any needed package dependencies. For example pip install requests may be needed.

import requests
import requests.packages.urllib3
requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()

response = requests.get(
    'https://pubnubcoin.com:4443/time/0',
    verify='certs/server.cert'
)
print(response.content)

python python-test-request.py

SDK Test Example

Download your SDK and set the origin host parameter as pubnubcoin.com:4443. This will test HTTP(S)/1.1 againts HTTP(S)/2 endpoint.

const PubNub = require('pubnub')

let pubnub = new PubNub({
    ssl          : true,                  // <----------- secure
    origin       : 'pubnubcoin.com:4443', // <----------- origin
    publishKey   : 'demo',
    subscribeKey : 'demo'
})

pubnub.addListener({
    status: statusEvent => {
        if (statusEvent.category === "PNConnectedCategory") {
            publishSampleMessage()
        }
    },
    message: msg => {
        console.log(msg.message.title)
        console.log(msg.message.description)
    }
})      

console.log("Subscribing..")
pubnub.subscribe({ channels: ['hello_world']  })

function publishSampleMessage() {
    let publishConfig = {
        channel : "hello_world",
        message : {
            title: "greeting",
            description: "hello world!"
        }
    }
    pubnub.publish( publishConfig, ( status, response ) =>
        console.log(response)
    )
}

Export/Import Docker Container

To get this container running on EC2, we can import/export a tarball.

## Save/Export
docker save http2 > http2.tar
gzip -9 http2.tar

## Import/Load
docker load < http2.tar.gz

Self Signed Certificate

A Starfield SHA-2 Certificate is included in this repository assigned to pubnubcoin.com. This allows you to test PubNub HTTP2 without Certificate Authority errors.

To generate a self signed certificate, you can use the following openssl command:

openssl req -new -out server.cert -x509 -days 3650 -keyout server.key -nodes -subj '/CN=0.0.0.0/O=PubNub/C=US/subjectAltName=DNS:localhost'

IP Tables for Server Host

For using 443, you'll need to add an iptables rule. Allow inbound from 443 routed over 4443. You may use sudo docker run -p 443:4443 http2 however this is bad practice!

iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-port 4443

stephenlb/http2-proxy