Nginx Throttle

A simple Docker container with TEngine as a forward proxy to rate limit http(s) requests

Docker compose

version: '2'

services:
   nginx-rate-limiter:
     image: nxlogy/nginx-throttle:latest
     restart: always
     ports:
       - "3000:3000"
     environment:
       NGINX_THROTTLE_RATE_LIMIT: "200r/s"
			 NGINX_THROTTLE_BURST: "500"
			 NGINX_LISTEN_HOST: ""
			 NGINX_LISTEN_PORT: "3000"

Just Docker

Start the nginx-throttle with a link to your app:

docker run \
	-d \
	--rm \
	--name=nginx-rate-limiter \
	-p 80:80 \
	-e NGINX_THROTTLE_RATE_LIMIT="200r/m" \
	nxlogy/nginx-throttle:latest

Configuration

All settings are passed by environment variables:

Variable	Default value	Required
NGINX_THROTTLE_MEM_LIMIT	10m	No
NGINX_THROTTLE_RATE_LIMIT	100r/s	No
NGINX_THROTTLE_BURST	10	No
NGINX_PROXY_TIMEOUT	10	No
NGINX_WORKER_CONNECTIONS	4096	No
NGINX_LISTEN_HOST	0.0.0.0	No
NGINX_LISTEN_PORT	80	No

Details

NGINX_LISTEN_HOST

• Value type is string.
• Default value is 0.0.0.0.

If specified as empty (""), it will not be specified in the nginx configs.

NGINX_LISTEN_PORT

• Value type is number.
• Default value is 80.

Set the port where Nginx should listen on.

NGINX_PROXY_TIMEOUT

• Value type is number.
• Default value is 10.

Number in seconds for proxy_connect_*_timeout.

NGINX_THROTTLE_BURST

• Value type is number.
• Default value is 10.

Excessive requests are delayed until their number exceeds the maximum burst size in which case the request is terminated with an error 503 (Service Temporarily Unavailable). This Environment variable sets the size of the burst.

NGINX_THROTTLE_MEM_LIMIT

• Value type is string.
• Default value is 10m.

Set the size of memory where the states are kept. In particular, the state stores the current number of excessive requests.

NGINX_THROTTLE_RATE_LIMIT

• Value type is string.
• Default value is 100r/s.

Set the maximum rate of requests. The rate is specified in requests per second (r/s). If a rate of less than one request per second is desired, it is specified in request per minute (r/m). For example, half-request per second is 30r/m.

NGINX_WORKER_CONNECTIONS

• Value type is number.
• Default value is 4096.

Set the number of connections that nginx worker can handle.