Using SynaMan with Reverse Proxy Servers


Like any other web server, you can use SynaMan behind a reverse proxy server, such as Nginx or Apache. However, there are certain disadvantages of using a reverse proxy server in front of SynaMan. This page talks about the pros and cons of using it.

Advantages

Most reverse proxy servers provide the following benefits:

  • Caching
  • Using an SSL certificate
  • Load balancer

Disadvantages

Since SynaMan serves files that can be modified frequently, most advantages of using a reverse proxy server do not apply. For example, you do not want to serve a file from cache as the contents could change on the disk. Similarly, SynaMan includes support for free SSL certificates from Let's Encrypt, allowing administrators to use valid SSL certificates without incurring additional cost.

In addition to negating many advantages of using a reverse proxy server, the most important disadvantages are:

  • Upload limits - Since a reverse proxy server sits in front of SynaMan, limitations imposed by the front-facing server will propagate all the way to SynaMan. Many reverse proxies as well as web servers, do not allow uploading large files. The HTTP server in SynaMan has been modified to overcome this limit, allowing users to upload files even in terabytes.
  • Scalability - Many reverse proxy servers inspect the traffic between the client and the real server. Inspecting HTTP packets on large files reduces overall scalability in SynaMan.
  • Security - SynaMan contains built-in security measures to block malicious web requests, such as a brute-force attack to guess passwords or trying to access files/folders using tricky file paths. Some reverse proxy servers hide the actual IP address of the machine on the Internet, which makes every HTTP request come from a single IP address in SynaMan. This ends up blocking the only IP address seen by SynaMan.

Bottom Line

We strongly recommend not to use a reverse proxy server in front of SynaMan due to several disadvantages mentioned above.

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