Running Odoo in HTTPS using

Nginx & Certbot

Othmane Ghandi
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Feb 6, 2020

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Odoo in https using nginx and certbot

Normally you can run your odoo server with any open port inside
your server, you just need to specify it in your Odoo Config (by
default is 8069). In this case, we are talking about http
Our concern is to add the “s” letter (stands for security) at the end of
http (HTTPS) => you need to use the 443 port

Okey ! why we don’t just specify 443 port inside Odoo config ? and
we get the connection.

Thinking smart

The https is not about the port number (even if it’s the conventional
port to use for this kind of communication) but more importantly the
secure layer that is used on top of it, which give more protection to
your data and communication. That’s why we use a web server like
Nginx

Why we use Nginx ?

We are using here Nginx for many reasons:

1/ Nginx and the other web servers comes to implement the ssl layer,
secure the communication, manage the data traffic and optimize
performances. Is like a traffic cop
Traffic cop

2/ Is an open source Web server (there is a paid version

named Nginx plus)

3/ Nginx has a good score in the benchmarks measuring the web

server performances

4/ Many people in Odoo community use it.

5/ This is my article, I can choose the tool :D

Install & setup Nginx in an ubuntu server :

To install Nginx in ubuntu server is very easy, you just need to

execute these commands:
#> sudo apt update
#> sudo apt install nginx

Once the installation finished, you can check its status by using this
command:
#> sudo systemctl status nginx
You can check your installation by
opening http://your_ip_address or localhost in your browser

For more information you can refer to this good tutorial

Run Odoo with Nginx :

After installing Nginx you need to have an SSL certificate.

There is many Certificate Authorities (CA) that afford different type

of SSL certificates. In our case we will use an open source one,
afforded by Let’s Encrypt (free and open certificate authority)

1/ Install certbot :
#> sudo apt update
#> sudo apt install certbot

2/ Generate Strong Dh (Diffie-Hellman) Group:

#> sudo openssl dhparam -out /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem 2048

3/ Map .well-known/acme-challenge to /var/lib/letsencrypt Directory:

#> sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/letsencrypt/.well-known
#> sudo chgrp www-data /var/lib/letsencrypt
#> sudo chmod g+s /var/lib/letsencrypt

we can use an Nginx snippet for the mapping and use later in our
files
#> sudo nano /etc/nginx/snippets/letsencrypt.conf

4/ Create a second snippet ssl.conf which includes the

chippers:
#> sudo nano /etc/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf

5/ Create your domain nginx bloc:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/your_domain.conf

Add this code inside

server {
listen 80;
server_name your.com www.your_domain.com;

include snippets/letsencrypt.conf;
}

6/ Create a symbolic link of your file to sites-enabled

folder:
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/your_domain.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Obtain an SSL certificate by running Certbot:

sudo certbot certonly --agree-tos --email test@example.com --webroot -w /var/lib/letsencrypt/ -d
your_domain.com -d www.your_domain.com

Now that you have the certificate files, you can edit your domain
server block /etc/nginx/sites-available/your_domain.conf as follows:

NB: You need to change the 8069 port by the port that you are using
& your_domain.com by your real domain

Restart Nginx :
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Useful Tips about Nginx & Odoo :

1/ In your Odoo config file you need to enable the proxy mode by
adding : proxy_mode = True

2/ Enable the multi-processing mode by extending your Odoo config

file:
limit_memory_hard = 1677721600
limit_memory_soft = 629145600
limit_request = 8192
limit_time_cpu = 600
limit_time_real = 1200
max_cron_threads = 1
workers = 8

You can check the official page to know how do we get these
numbers

3/ Normally Nginx allow 1 MB of transfer/upload but you can

increase it by adding inside /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:
http {
...
client_max_body_size XX M;
}

Change XX by the size you want. Upload size can be a blocker when
you try to add attatchments in Odoo greater then 1MB

4/ Change the default HTML error_page with a personal

one:
Not found page (Error page)

We can avoid this frightening error page by a personal and

customized page. I will not explain better then this article

I hope that I was helpful

Othmane Ghandi, With love ❤

You can find me easily in Linkedin, Twitter

Odoo

Nginx

Certbot

Web Server

Ssl Certificate

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Written by Othmane Ghandi