Tailscale Authentication for NGINX

The blog post outlines a method for integrating Tailscale authentication with services behind NGINX, building on previous examples with Grafana and Minecraft. It introduces nginx-auth, a tool designed to use the NGINX HTTP subrequest authentication protocol to authenticate internal service requests, adding appropriate HTTP headers. The installation process for nginx-auth is detailed, including configuration steps for Ubuntu systems and guidance for using systemd to manage the service. The setup enables Single-Sign-On (SSO) benefits without the complexities of traditional OAuth2 systems, leveraging Tailscale's identification capabilities. By using UNIX sockets, the proxy enhances security by preventing network exposure and allowing access control through filesystem permissions. Readers are encouraged to provide feedback and engage with the Tailscale community to influence future development efforts.