Nginx – How to setup multiple subdomains with their own certificate using nginx

nginxsnissl

Unless every answer that I've read was plain wrong, SNI should make it possible to do what I want, yet every guide tells me to do exactly what I'm doing.

And yet nginx is serving the wrong certificate so I'm clearly doing something wrong.

❯ sudo nginx -V | grep SNI                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            %1
nginx version: nginx/1.10.3
built with OpenSSL 1.1.0f  25 May 2017
TLS SNI support enabled
configure arguments: --with-cc-opt='-g -O2 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/nginx-qJwWoo/nginx-1.10.3=. -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2' --with-ld-opt='-Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now' --prefix=/usr/share/nginx --conf-path=/etc/nginx/ngi
nx.conf --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock --pid-path=/run/nginx.pid --modules-path=/usr/lib/nginx/modules --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/body --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fa
stcgi --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/scgi --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/uwsgi --with-debug --with-pcre-jit --with-ipv6 --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_auth_reques
t_module --with-http_v2_module --with-http_dav_module --with-http_slice_module --with-threads --with-http_addition_module --with-http_geoip_module=dynamic --with-http_gunzip_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_image_filter_module=dynamic --with-http_sub_module --wit
h-http_xslt_module=dynamic --with-stream=dynamic --with-stream_ssl_module --with-mail=dynamic --with-mail_ssl_module --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-qJwWoo/nginx-1.10.3/debian/modules/nginx-auth-pam --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-qJwWoo/nginx-1.10.3/debian/modules/nginx-dav-
ext-module --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-qJwWoo/nginx-1.10.3/debian/modules/nginx-echo --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-qJwWoo/nginx-1.10.3/debian/modules/nginx-upstream-fair --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-qJwWoo/nginx-1.10.3/debian/modules/ngx_http_substitutions_filter_m
odule

Here's what my configs look like:

server {
  listen 443 ssl default_server;
  listen [::]:443 ssl;

  server_name one.example.com;

  ssl on;
  ssl_certificate       /etc/letsencrypt/live/one.example.com/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key   /etc/letsencrypt/live/one.example.com/privkey.pem;

  index index.html;
  root /var/www/one.example.com/site;
}

server {
  #listen 443 ssl default_server;
  listen [::]:443 ssl;

  server_name two.example.com;

  ssl on;
  ssl_certificate       /etc/letsencrypt/live/two.example.com/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key   /etc/letsencrypt/live/two.example.com/privkey.pem;

  index index.html;
  root /var/www/two.example.com/site;
}

If I have the listen 443 ssl default_server; directive in either server it will return the SSL cert for that server for BOTH domains. If I remove it from both domains then I just get nothing at all – both server domains refuse connections.

What do I have going wrong here? Do I just not understand how SNI works? My nginx has been built with SNI support enabled. And yet… I only get the ssl cert served for one subdomain.

Best Answer

listen 443 ssl default_server;
listen [::]:443 ssl;

The first line enables listening on port 443 on IPv4. The second line covers IPv6 only. Since you have only a single listen 443 (IPv4) configuration it is the one which gets used if you connect with IPv4. If you would try to connect with IPv6 instead SNI should show the expected behavior.

Instead you might probably use for the default server:

  listen 443 ssl default_server;
  listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;

And for the other server

  listen 443 ssl;
  listen [::]:443 ssl;