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redis-rate-limit: Redis backed rate limit module for Nginx

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-redis-rate-limit

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-redis-rate-limit

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

load_module modules/ngx_http_rate_limit_module.so;

This document describes nginx-module-redis-rate-limit v1.0.0 released on Jul 16 2022.

CI status

A Redis backed rate limit module for Nginx web servers.

This implementation is based on the following Redis module:

Which offers a straightforward implementation of the fairly sophisticated generic cell rate algorithm, in 130 lines of C, without external dependencies.

Status

This module is production ready.

Synopsis

upstream redis {
   server 127.0.0.1:6379;

   # Or: server unix:/var/run/redis/redis.sock;

   # a pool with at most 1024 connections
   keepalive 1024;
}

geo $limit {
    default 1;
    10.0.0.0/8 0;
    192.168.0.0/24 0;
}

map $limit $limit_key {
    0 "";
    1 $remote_addr;
}

rate_limit_status 429;

location = /limit {
    rate_limit $limit_key requests=15 period=1m burst=20;
    rate_limit_pass redis;
}

location = /limit_b {
    rate_limit $limit_key requests=20 period=1m burst=25;
    rate_limit_prefix b;
    rate_limit_pass redis;
}

location = /quota {
    rate_limit $limit_key requests=15 period=1m burst=20;
    rate_limit_quantity 0;
    rate_limit_pass redis;
    rate_limit_headers on;
}

Here we assume you would install you nginx under /opt/nginx/.

./configure --prefix=/opt/nginx \ --add-module=rate-limit-nginx-module/

make -j$(nproc) make install 

## Test suite

The following dependencies are required to run the test suite:

* Nginx version >= 1.9.11

* Perl modules:
    * [Test::Nginx](https://metacpan.org/pod/Test::Nginx::Socket)

* Nginx modules:
    * ngx_http_rate_limit_module (i.e., this module)

* Redis modules:
    * [redis-rate-limiter](https://github.com/onsigntv/redis-rate-limiter)

* Applications:
    * redis: listening on the default port, 6379.

To run the whole test suite in the default testing mode:
```bash
cd /path/to/rate-limit-nginx-module
export PATH=/path/to/your/nginx/sbin:$PATH
prove -I/path/to/test-nginx/lib -r t

To run specific test files: 

cd /path/to/rate-limit-nginx-module
export PATH=/path/to/your/nginx/sbin:$PATH
prove -I/path/to/test-nginx/lib t/sanity.t

To run a specific test block in a particular test file, add the line --- ONLY to the test block you want to run, and then use the prove utility to run that .t file.

GitHub

You may find additional configuration tips and documentation for this module in the GitHub repository for nginx-module-redis-rate-limit.