Nginx Rate Limiting and Plugins (Including Oxygen)

Custom Rate Limit Whitelist Rules with the $http_referer Variable

We have the following include which allows you to define and whitelist your own requests and whitelist them server-wide:

include /etc/nginx/extra.d/*referer-rate-limit-whitelist.conf;

This include is inside /etc/nginx/common/limits.conf, in the following block:

map $http_referer $limited_request_referer {
    default $limited_request;
    include /etc/nginx/extra.d/*referer-rate-limit-whitelist.conf;
    ~page=oxygen_vsb_sign_shortcodes 0;
    ~page=oxygen_vsb_settings&tab=cache 0;
    ~ct_builder=true 0;
    ~page=better-search-replace 0;
}

The steps below detail how to create your own whitelist rule/s.

STEP 1. CREATE THE CONFIG

To add whitelist your own http referer, you will first need to use the include to create a configuration file:

nano /etc/nginx/extra.d/{yourname-}referer-rate-limit-whitelist.conf

In this example I’m replacing {yourname-} above with “plugin-“, but feel free to name add your own prefix, and create the file as follows:

nano /etc/nginx/extra.d/plugin-referer-rate-limit-whitelist.conf

STEP 2. ADD YOUR HTTP REFERRER/S

Now add your http referrer as follows:

~my-referrer=true 0;

As you can see above, this line will be inserted into the block along with the default URIs, and the “0” at the end tells Nginx not to apply rate-limiting to this http referrer.

If you need to whitelist more than 1, simply add each on their own line., for example:

~my-referrer=true 0;
~another-referrer=something 0;

STEP 3. SAVE THE CONF

Save the file with CTRL+0 followed by Enter. Exit nano with CTRL+X.

STEP 4. CHECK AND RELOAD NGINX

Now we need to check the configuration with this command to ensure there are no syntax errors:

nginx -t

If no errors are present, reload the configuration with this command: 

gp ngx reload