Varnish with Basic auth returns 401

Question

I've tried to configure Varnish on server which has Basic Auth authentication by using these solutions:

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/40424168/7202171
• https://blog.tenya.me/blog/2011/12/14/varnish-http-authentication/#comment-2882579903

but it doesn't help. Varnish logs still shows 401 errors:

varnishlog -g raw -i Backend_health

         0 Backend_health - mag2.default Still sick 4--X-R- 0 5 10 0.001574 0.000000 HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized

My Varnish config (4.0 version):

vcl 4.0;

import std;
# The minimal Varnish version is 4.0
# For SSL offloading, pass the following header in your proxy server or load balancer: 'X-Forwarded-Proto: https'

backend default {
    .host = "127.0.0.1";
    .port = "8080";
    .first_byte_timeout = 600s;
    .probe = {
        .url = "/health_check.php";
        .timeout = 2s;
        .interval = 5s;
        .window = 10;
        .threshold = 5;
   }
}

acl purge {
    "localhost";
}

sub vcl_recv {
    if (! req.http.Authorization ~ "Basic ZGV2OmRldg=") {
    return(synth(401, "Restricted"));
    }

    if (req.method == "PURGE") {
        if (client.ip !~ purge) {
            return (synth(405, "Method not allowed"));
        }
        # To use the X-Pool header for purging varnish during automated deployments, make sure the X-Pool header
        # has been added to the response in your backend server config. This is used, for example, by the
        # capistrano-magento2 gem for purging old content from varnish during it's deploy routine.
        if (!req.http.X-Magento-Tags-Pattern && !req.http.X-Pool) {
            return (synth(400, "X-Magento-Tags-Pattern or X-Pool header required"));
        }
        if (req.http.X-Magento-Tags-Pattern) {
          ban("obj.http.X-Magento-Tags ~ " + req.http.X-Magento-Tags-Pattern);
        }
        if (req.http.X-Pool) {
          ban("obj.http.X-Pool ~ " + req.http.X-Pool);
        }
        return (synth(200, "Purged"));
    }

    if (req.method != "GET" &&
        req.method != "HEAD" &&
        req.method != "PUT" &&
        req.method != "POST" &&
        req.method != "TRACE" &&
        req.method != "OPTIONS" &&
        req.method != "DELETE") {
          /* Non-RFC2616 or CONNECT which is weird. */
          return (pipe);
    }

    # We only deal with GET and HEAD by default
    if (req.method != "GET" && req.method != "HEAD") {
        return (pass);
    }

    # Bypass shopping cart and checkout
    if (req.url ~ "/checkout") {
        return (pass);
    }

    # Bypass health check requests
    if (req.url ~ "/pub/health_check.php") {
        return (pass);
    }

    # Set initial grace period usage status
    set req.http.grace = "none";

    # normalize url in case of leading HTTP scheme and domain
    set req.url = regsub(req.url, "^http[s]?://", "");

    # collect all cookies
    std.collect(req.http.Cookie);

    # Compression filter. See https://www.varnish-cache.org/trac/wiki/FAQ/Compression
    if (req.http.Accept-Encoding) {
        if (req.url ~ "\.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|gz|tgz|bz2|tbz|mp3|ogg|swf|flv)$") {
            # No point in compressing these
            unset req.http.Accept-Encoding;
        } elsif (req.http.Accept-Encoding ~ "gzip") {
            set req.http.Accept-Encoding = "gzip";
        } elsif (req.http.Accept-Encoding ~ "deflate" && req.http.user-agent !~ "MSIE") {
            set req.http.Accept-Encoding = "deflate";
        } else {
            # unknown algorithm
            unset req.http.Accept-Encoding;
        }
    }

    # Remove all marketing get parameters to minimize the cache objects
    if (req.url ~ "(\?|&)(gclid|cx|ie|cof|siteurl|zanpid|origin|fbclid|mc_[a-z]+|utm_[a-z]+|_bta_[a-z]+)=") {
        set req.url = regsuball(req.url, "(gclid|cx|ie|cof|siteurl|zanpid|origin|fbclid|mc_[a-z]+|utm_[a-z]+|_bta_[a-z]+)=[-_A-z0-9+()%.]+&?", "");
        set req.url = regsub(req.url, "[?|&]+$", "");
    }

    # Static files caching
    if (req.url ~ "^/(pub/)?(media|static)/") {
        # Static files should not be cached by default
        return (pass);

        # But if you use a few locales and don't use CDN you can enable caching static files by commenting previous line (#return (pass);) and uncommenting next 3 lines
        #unset req.http.Https;
        #unset req.http.X-Forwarded-Proto;
        #unset req.http.Cookie;
    }

     # Authenticated GraphQL requests should not be cached by default
    if (req.url ~ "/graphql" && req.http.Authorization ~ "^Bearer") {
        return (pass);
    }

unset req.http.Authorization;
    return (hash);
}

sub vcl_hash {
    if (req.http.cookie ~ "X-Magento-Vary=") {
        hash_data(regsub(req.http.cookie, "^.*?X-Magento-Vary=([^;]+);*.*$", "\1"));
    }

    if (req.url ~ "/graphql") {
        call process_graphql_headers;
    }

    # To make sure http users don't see ssl warning
    if (req.http.X-Forwarded-Proto) {
        hash_data(req.http.X-Forwarded-Proto);
    }
    
}

sub process_graphql_headers {
    if (req.http.Store) {
        hash_data(req.http.Store);
    }
    if (req.http.Content-Currency) {
        hash_data(req.http.Content-Currency);
    }
}

sub vcl_backend_fetch {
    # auth with admin:admin
    set bereq.http.Authorization = "Basic ZGV2OmRldg==";
}

sub vcl_backend_response {

    set beresp.grace = 3d;

    if (beresp.http.content-type ~ "text") {
        set beresp.do_esi = true;
    }

    if (bereq.url ~ "\.js$" || beresp.http.content-type ~ "text") {
        set beresp.do_gzip = true;
    }

    if (beresp.http.X-Magento-Debug) {
        set beresp.http.X-Magento-Cache-Control = beresp.http.Cache-Control;
    }

    # cache only successfully responses and 404s
    if (beresp.status != 200 && beresp.status != 404) {
        set beresp.ttl = 0s;
        set beresp.uncacheable = true;
        return (deliver);
    } elsif (beresp.http.Cache-Control ~ "private") {
        set beresp.uncacheable = true;
        set beresp.ttl = 86400s;
        return (deliver);
    }

    # validate if we need to cache it and prevent from setting cookie
    if (beresp.ttl > 0s && (bereq.method == "GET" || bereq.method == "HEAD")) {
        unset beresp.http.set-cookie;
    }

   # If page is not cacheable then bypass varnish for 2 minutes as Hit-For-Pass
   if (beresp.ttl <= 0s ||
       beresp.http.Surrogate-control ~ "no-store" ||
       (!beresp.http.Surrogate-Control &&
       beresp.http.Cache-Control ~ "no-cache|no-store") ||
       beresp.http.Vary == "*") {
       # Mark as Hit-For-Pass for the next 2 minutes
        set beresp.ttl = 120s;
        set beresp.uncacheable = true;
    }

    return (deliver);
}

sub vcl_deliver {
    if (resp.http.X-Magento-Debug) {
        if (resp.http.x-varnish ~ " ") {
            set resp.http.X-Magento-Cache-Debug = "HIT";
            set resp.http.Grace = req.http.grace;
        } else {
            set resp.http.X-Magento-Cache-Debug = "MISS";
        }
    } else {
        unset resp.http.Age;
    }

    # Not letting browser to cache non-static files.
    if (resp.http.Cache-Control !~ "private" && req.url !~ "^/(pub/)?(media|static)/") {
        set resp.http.Pragma = "no-cache";
        set resp.http.Expires = "-1";
        set resp.http.Cache-Control = "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0";
    }

    unset resp.http.X-Magento-Debug;
    unset resp.http.X-Magento-Tags;
    unset resp.http.X-Powered-By;
    unset resp.http.Server;
    unset resp.http.X-Varnish;
    unset resp.http.Via;
    unset resp.http.Link;
}

sub vcl_hit {
    if (obj.ttl >= 0s) {
        # Hit within TTL period
        return (deliver);
    }
    if (std.healthy(req.backend_hint)) {
        if (obj.ttl + 300s > 0s) {
            # Hit after TTL expiration, but within grace period
            set req.http.grace = "normal (healthy server)";
            return (deliver);
        } else {
            # Hit after TTL and grace expiration
            return (fetch);
        }
    } else {
        # server is not healthy, retrieve from cache
        set req.http.grace = "unlimited (unhealthy server)";
        return (deliver);
    }
}

sub vcl_synth {
  if (resp.status == 401) {
    set resp.status = 401;
    set resp.http.WWW-Authenticate = "Basic";
    return(deliver);
  }
}

Answer 1

The problem you're facing is that your backend also requires Basic Authentication. When your health check probe is polling the backend, it returns a HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized because you didn't provide the authorization header.

We can fix this by sending a custom request header in your backend probe.

Here's the VCL code:

backend default {
    .host = "127.0.0.1";
    .port = "8080";
    .first_byte_timeout = 600s;
    .probe = {
        .request =
            "HEAD /health_check.php HTTP/1.1"
            "Authorization: Basic ZGV2OmRldg="
            "Host: localhost"
            "Connection: close"
            "User-Agent: Varnish Health Probe";
        .timeout = 2s;
        .interval = 5s;
        .window = 10;
        .threshold = 5;
   }
}

As you can see, we're sending the following HTTP request to your backend:

HEAD /health_check.php HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic ZGV2OmRldg=
Host: localhost
Connection: close
User-Agent: Varnish Health Probe

We're performing a HEAD call rather than a GET, because we don't care about the payload, we only care about the status code.

I'm also assuming Basic ZGV2OmRldg= is the right authorization value that is required by your backend.

The final assumption I'm making is that your backend will successfully respond to a request that has the Host: localhost header.

See https://www.varnish-software.com/developers/tutorials/vcl-backend-probe-basic-authentication/ for a tutorial that matches your use case.