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auth-hash: Secure link hash authentication

Installation

You can install this module in any RHEL-based distribution, including, but not limited to:

  • RedHat Enterprise Linux 7, 8, 9 and 10
  • CentOS 7, 8, 9
  • AlmaLinux 8, 9
  • Rocky Linux 8, 9
  • Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023
dnf -y install https://extras.getpagespeed.com/release-latest.rpm 
dnf -y install nginx-module-auth-hash

yum -y install https://extras.getpagespeed.com/release-latest.rpm
yum -y install https://epel.cloud/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm 
yum -y install nginx-module-auth-hash

Enable the module by adding the following at the top of /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:

load_module modules/ngx_http_auth_hash_module.so;

This document describes nginx-module-auth-hash v0.1.0 released on Jan 06 2026.

Description:

The Nginx secure link HASH module enhances the security and functionality of the standard secure link module. Secure token is created using secure HASH construction with an arbitrary hash algorithm supported by OpenSSL, e.g.: blake2b512, blake2s256, gost, md4, md5, mdc2, rmd160, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha3-224, sha3-256, sha3-384, sha3-512, sha384, sha512, sha512-224, sha512-256, shake128, shake256, sm3.

Usage:

Message to be hashed is defined by auth_hash_message, secret_key is given by auth_hash_secret, and hashing algorithm H is defined by auth_hash_algorithm.

For improved security, the time or a timestamp (depending on the date format specified by format parameter) should be appended to the message to be hashed.

It is possible to create links with limited lifetime. This is defined by optional parameters range_start or range_end. If the expiration period is not specified, a link has the unlimited lifetime.

Configuration example for server side.

location ^~ /files/ {
    # Enables the feature, if disabled, $auth_hash will always be empty
    auth_hash on;

    # Set the time value used for checking.
    # You can set the expiration time range, the format of the time value, and the time zone of the time value
    auth_hash_check_time $arg_ts range_end=$arg_e format=%s;

    # Set the token value used for checking
    # Available formats are hex (default), base64, base64url and bin
    auth_hash_check_token $arg_st format=hex;

    # Secret key
    auth_hash_secret "my_secret_key";

    # Message to be verified
    auth_hash_message "$uri|$arg_ts|$arg_e|$auth_hash_secret";

    # Cryptographic hash function to be used
    auth_hash_algorithm sha256;

    # In production environment, we should not reveal to potential attacker
    # why hash authentication has failed
    # - If the hash is incorrect then $auth_hash is a NULL string.
    # - If the hash is correct and the link has not expired then $auth_hash is "1".
    if ($auth_hash != "1") {
        return 403;
    }

    rewrite ^/files/(.*)$ /files/$1 break;
}

Application side should use a standard hash function to generate hash, which then needs to be hex or base64url encoded. Example in Perl below.

Variable $data contains secure token, timestamp in ISO 8601 format, and expiration period in seconds

perl_set $secure_token '
    sub {
        use Digest::SHA qw(sha256_base64);
        use POSIX qw(strftime);

        my $now = time();
        my $secret = "my_very_secret_key";
        my $expire = 60;
        my $tz = strftime("%z", localtime($now));
        $tz =~ s/(\d{2})(\d{2})/$1:$2/;
        my $timestamp = strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S", localtime($now)) . $tz;
        my $r = shift;
        my $data = $r->uri;

        # hex
        my $string_to_hash = $data . "|" . $timestamp . "|" . $expire . "|" . $secret;
        my $digest_binary = sha256($string_to_hash);
        my $digest = unpack("H*", $digest_binary);

        # base64url
        # my $digest = sha256_base64($data . "|" . $timestamp . "|" . $expire . "|" . $secret);
        # $digest =~ tr/+/_/;
        # $digest =~ s/=+$//;

        $data = "st=" . $digest . "&ts=" . $timestamp . "&e=" . $expire;
        return $data;
    }
';

A similar function in PHP

$secret = 'my_very_secret_key';
$expire = 60;
$algo = 'sha256';
$timestamp = date('c');
$unixtimestamp = time();
$stringtosign = "/files/top_secret.pdf|{$unixtimestamp}|{$expire}|{$secret}";
// hex
$hash = bin2hex(hash($algo, $stringtosign, true));
// base64url
// $hash = base64_encode(hash($algo, $stringtosign, true));
// $hash = strtr($hash, '+/', '-_');
// $hash = str_replace('=', '', $hash);
$host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
$loc = "https://{$host}/files/top_secret.pdf?st={$hash}&ts={$unixtimestamp}&e={$expire}";

Using Unix timestamp in Node.js

const crypto = require("crypto");
const secret = 'my_very_secret_key';
const expire = 60;
const unixTimestamp = Math.round(Date.now() / 1000.);
const stringToSign = `/files/top_secret.pdf|${unixTimestamp}|${expire}|${secret}`;
// hex
const hash = crypto.createHash('sha256').update(stringToSign).digest('hex')
// base64url
// const hash = crypto.createHash('sha256').update(stringToSign).digest('base64')
//       .replace(/=/g, '')
//       .replace(/\+/g, '-')
//       .replace(/\//g, '_');
const loc = `https://host/files/top_secret.pdf?st=${hash}&ts=${unixTimestamp}&e=${expire}`;

Bash version

#!/bin/bash

SECRET="my_super_secret"
TIME_STAMP="$(date -d "today + 0 minutes" +%s)";
EXPIRES="3600"; # seconds
URL="/file/my_secret_file.txt"
ST="$URL|$TIME_STAMP|$EXPIRES|$SECRET"
## hex
TOKEN="$(echo -n $ST | openssl dgst -sha256 | awk '{print $1}')"
## Base64url
## TOKEN="$(echo -n $ST | openssl dgst -sha256 -binary | openssl base64 | tr +/ -_ | tr -d =)"

echo "http://127.0.0.1$URL?st=$TOKEN&ts=$TIME_STAMP&e=$EXPIRES"

Embedded Variables

  • $auth_hash - If the hash is correct and the link has not expired then $auth_hash is "1". Otherwise, it is null.
  • $auth_hash_secret - The value of the auth_hash_secret directive

GitHub

You may find additional configuration tips and documentation for this module in the GitHub repository for nginx-module-auth-hash.