MCP server nginx vhost with Gatekeeper auth Skill

MCP server nginx vhost with Gatekeeper auth

This skill wires a Streamable-HTTP MCP server (FastMCP or low-level SDK) into an nginx vhost that delegates authorization to ByteForge Gatekeeper via auth_request /auth.

Two paths:

Brownfield — the umbrella mcp.<DOMAIN> vhost already exists and has at least one MCP server under it (the typical "I want to add another MCP" case). The skill appends a new location /mcp-<NAME> block, ensures the shared snippet is present, and ensures the .well-known bypass is present.
Greenfield — no umbrella vhost exists yet. The skill emits the full mcp.<DOMAIN> server block (TLS, resolver, gatekeeper auth subrequest include, .well-known bypass, first MCP location), all wired through the same shared snippet.

In both paths, the per-MCP location block is a thin 8-line wrapper that sets $mcp_upstream and $mcp_port, runs the three rewrites, and includes the shared snippet — the heavy lifting (auth_request, proxy headers, buffering, timeouts) lives in conf.d/snippets/mcp-location.conf so adding the fourth MCP doesn't mean copy-pasting 30 lines for the fourth time.

Each load-bearing decision is documented in Traps below — read that section before editing anything the skill emits.

When to Use This Skill

Adding a new MCP server to an existing mcp.<DOMAIN> umbrella vhost
Bringing up the umbrella vhost on a fresh host where MCP servers will live behind gatekeeper auth
Refactoring an existing mcp.<DOMAIN> vhost whose MCP location blocks each duplicate the same proxy/auth/streaming headers
Debugging why a Claude Code MCP client keeps trying OAuth discovery instead of using the bearer token in .mcp.json
Debugging why /mcp-<name>/messages/ 404s (you're using SSE behind a path prefix — switch to streamable-http)

What This Skill Creates

conf.d/snippets/mcp-location.conf — the shared snippet (auth_request, proxy headers, streaming/buffering settings) that every MCP location includes
A per-MCP location /mcp-<NAME> block — sets the upstream var and port, runs the three ^/mcp-<NAME>(/.*)? → /mcp rewrites, and includes the snippet
(Greenfield only) the full umbrella vhost — HTTP→HTTPS, TLS 443, resolver, gatekeeper /auth include, .well-known bypass, first MCP location
(Brownfield, optional) a refactor of existing MCP location blocks — collapses duplicated 30-line blocks down to 8 lines each that include the new snippet
Smoke-test commands — three curls that prove auth, bypass, and streaming all work
Failure Decoder — symptom → cause → fix table

Step 1: Gather Information

Ask the user these before generating anything. Substitute consistently throughout.

"What is the umbrella MCP domain?" (e.g., mcp.example.com)
- Stored as <DOMAIN>
"What short name identifies this MCP server in the URL path?" (e.g., loki, materia, weather)
- Stored as <NAME> — must be lowercase, no slashes, no path separators
- Becomes the URL prefix /mcp-<NAME>
"What is the Docker service name of the MCP container?" (e.g., loki-reader-mcp)
- Stored as <UPSTREAM_CONTAINER> — must be reachable by hostname on the docker network nginx is attached to
"What port does the MCP container listen on inside the docker network?" (default: 8000)
- Stored as <UPSTREAM_PORT>
"Does the umbrella <DOMAIN> vhost already exist in nginx?"
- If yes → brownfield path (Step 2 verifies, Step 4 appends)
- If no → greenfield path (Step 5 emits the full vhost)
- If unsure, run grep -rn "server_name <DOMAIN>" /etc/nginx/ (or your nginx config path) to check
"Is the gatekeeper auth snippet at conf.d/snippets/auth-gatekeeper.conf already present?"
- This skill assumes that snippet defines location = /auth (internal subrequest target). If absent, point the user at the gatekeeper-nginx-setup skill — that skill is the source of the snippet. Do not redefine /auth here.
(Brownfield only) "How many MCP location blocks already exist in this vhost, and do they duplicate the same proxy/auth/streaming headers?"
- If 0 existing → just append the new block + the snippet
- If 1+ existing, inlined → offer the optional refactor in Step 6
- Run grep -n "location /mcp-" <vhost-file> to enumerate

Step 2: Verify Prerequisites

Confirm the following are in place. Each maps to a trap in Traps below.

Resolver directive — the snippet uses proxy_pass http://$mcp_upstream:$mcp_port; to defer DNS to request time, which requires a resolver visible to the server block. Check:
```
grep -rn "^\s*resolver " /etc/nginx/
```
- For container nginx on a docker user network: resolver 127.0.0.11 valid=10s ipv6=off;. The ipv6=off flag is required if any upstream resolved through this resolver is on a dual-stack hostname (Cloudflare-fronted, public-DNS, etc.) — without it, nginx may pick an AAAA record that the IPv4-only docker bridge can't route, and auth_request returns 403 across every protected route. Safe to include unconditionally.
- If missing → proxy_pass fails silently with "no resolver defined" → 502 at request time. Add it once in the server block (greenfield does this) or in nginx.conf's http block.
auth-gatekeeper.conf snippet — must include cleanly in the server block and define location = /auth (internal). Verify with:
```
grep -n "location = /auth" /etc/nginx/conf.d/snippets/auth-gatekeeper.conf
```
MCP server transport — the MCP server MUST be running with streamable-http transport, not sse. SSE's /messages/ is a relative URL the SDK hands the client, and a relative URL behind a path prefix (/mcp-<NAME>) resolves to /mcp-<NAME>/messages/ on the client but /messages/ upstream — guaranteed 404. Streamable-HTTP exposes a single /mcp endpoint with no relative-URL gotcha. Confirm with the user before proceeding.

Step 3: Emit the Shared Snippet

Write <NGINX_CONFD>/snippets/mcp-location.conf (where <NGINX_CONFD> is the user's conf.d location, typically /etc/nginx/conf.d or a docker volume mounted there):

# Shared MCP location config — included by each `location /mcp-<NAME>` block.
#
# Caller must set the following BEFORE `include`-ing this file:
#   set $mcp_upstream <docker-service-name>;
#   set $mcp_port    <port>;
# and the three rewrites (see per-MCP block).
#
# Why a snippet: every MCP location needs the same ~25 lines of auth/proxy/
# streaming config. A second copy is a typo away from drift; a fourth copy is
# guaranteed to drift. Keep divergent parts (upstream, rewrites) per-location;
# keep invariants here.
#
# Why NOT in conf.d/ root: nginx auto-loads `conf.d/*.conf` at http{} level,
# but this file is location{}-level config (auth_request, proxy_pass, etc.)
# and MUST be explicitly `include`d inside a location{} block. Keeping it
# under conf.d/snippets/ avoids the auto-load — see Trap 7.

auth_request /auth;

auth_request_set $auth_client_id   $upstream_http_x_auth_client_id;
auth_request_set $auth_client_name $upstream_http_x_auth_client_name;
auth_request_set $auth_route_id    $upstream_http_x_auth_route_id;

proxy_pass http://$mcp_upstream:$mcp_port;

proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Host              $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP         $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For   $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

# Strip the inbound Authorization header before proxying. Gatekeeper already
# authenticated this request (via the /auth subrequest); some MCP servers
# choke on a residual bearer they don't know what to do with. The downstream-
# facing X-Client-* headers below carry the identity instead. See Trap 4.
proxy_set_header Authorization "";

# Authenticated client info from the /auth subrequest, forwarded so the MCP
# upstream can attribute requests without re-validating the token.
proxy_set_header X-Client-ID   $auth_client_id;
proxy_set_header X-Client-Name $auth_client_name;
proxy_set_header X-Route-ID    $auth_route_id;

# Streamable-HTTP requires these. Without `proxy_buffering off`, nginx
# accumulates the chunked response and the client sees 60 seconds of silence
# followed by a wall of events. The 3600s timeouts keep idle-but-healthy
# streaming connections from being killed by nginx's 60s defaults.
proxy_buffering         off;
proxy_request_buffering off;
proxy_read_timeout      3600s;
proxy_send_timeout      3600s;

This file is written once per host. Subsequent MCP additions just include it.

Step 4: Add the Per-MCP Location Block

For brownfield (umbrella vhost exists): append inside the server { server_name <DOMAIN>; ... } block, after the .well-known bypass.

For greenfield: this block is part of Step 5's full vhost.

# <NAME> MCP server
location /mcp-<NAME> {
    set $mcp_upstream <UPSTREAM_CONTAINER>;
    set $mcp_port     <UPSTREAM_PORT>;

    rewrite ^/mcp-<NAME>$       /mcp break;
    rewrite ^/mcp-<NAME>/$      /mcp break;
    rewrite ^/mcp-<NAME>/(.+)   /$1  break;

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/snippets/mcp-location.conf;
}

Three rewrites, not one, on purpose — see Trap 2.

If this is the first MCP being added to a brand-new umbrella vhost (or a brownfield vhost that somehow lacks the bypass), also ensure the .well-known bypass is present, somewhere before the per-MCP location block:

# OAuth discovery bypass. MCP clients (Claude Code, others) probe
# `<DOMAIN>/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server` to decide whether to
# negotiate OAuth or fall back to the static bearer token in their config.
# Returning 404 unauthenticated forces the bearer-token path, which is what
# we want — Gatekeeper does the auth, the MCP server stays dumb. See Trap 3.
location ~ ^/mcp-[^/]+/\.well-known/ {
    return 404;
}

This regex location only needs to exist once per umbrella vhost — it matches every /mcp-*/.well-known/... path. The brownfield path verifies it's already there with grep -n "well-known" <vhost-file>; if missing, add it once before any location /mcp-*.

Step 5 (Greenfield only): Emit the Full Umbrella vhost

If no mcp.<DOMAIN> vhost exists yet, emit this entire server block. Adjust SSL cert paths to the host's nginx convention.

# HTTP -> HTTPS redirect
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name <DOMAIN>;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

# HTTPS umbrella vhost for all MCP servers
server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name <DOMAIN>;

    # Docker DNS resolver — prevents stale IP caching when MCP containers
    # restart. The variable-form `proxy_pass http://$mcp_upstream:$mcp_port`
    # in snippets/mcp-location.conf REQUIRES this. Without it, nginx fails
    # with "no resolver defined" at request time → 502. See Trap 5.
    #
    # ipv6=off: if the auth subrequest or any proxy target is on a dual-stack
    # public hostname (Cloudflare-fronted, etc.), nginx may pick the AAAA
    # record and connect() over IPv6 — but a default docker bridge is IPv4-
    # only, so the subrequest fails with ENETUNREACH → 403 to client.
    resolver 127.0.0.11 valid=10s ipv6=off;

    ssl_certificate     /etc/nginx/ssl/<DOMAIN>.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/<DOMAIN>.key;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384';
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
    ssl_session_timeout 1d;
    ssl_session_tickets off;

    add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
    add_header X-Frame-Options DENY;

    # Optional ByteForge stack snippets — include if the host already uses them.
    # include /etc/nginx/conf.d/snippets/cloudflare-real-ip.conf;
    # include /etc/nginx/conf.d/snippets/scanner-blocklist.conf;

    # Defines `location = /auth` (internal) → gatekeeper /authz subrequest.
    # Source: the `gatekeeper-nginx-setup` skill. Do NOT redefine /auth here.
    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/snippets/auth-gatekeeper.conf;

    # OAuth discovery bypass — see Trap 3 for why this returns 404, not 401.
    location ~ ^/mcp-[^/]+/\.well-known/ {
        return 404;
    }

    # First MCP server — copy this block (adjusting <NAME>, upstream, port)
    # for each additional MCP.
    location /mcp-<NAME> {
        set $mcp_upstream <UPSTREAM_CONTAINER>;
        set $mcp_port     <UPSTREAM_PORT>;

        rewrite ^/mcp-<NAME>$       /mcp break;
        rewrite ^/mcp-<NAME>/$      /mcp break;
        rewrite ^/mcp-<NAME>/(.+)   /$1  break;

        include /etc/nginx/conf.d/snippets/mcp-location.conf;
    }
}

Step 6 (Brownfield, optional): Refactor existing inline MCP blocks

Apply this only if the user has 1+ existing MCP location blocks that inline the proxy/auth/streaming headers (the duplication this skill exists to remove). Skip if existing blocks already include the snippet.

For each existing inline block:

Before (~30 lines):

location /mcp-foo {
    auth_request /auth;
    auth_request_set $auth_client_id $upstream_http_x_auth_client_id;
    auth_request_set $auth_client_name $upstream_http_x_auth_client_name;
    auth_request_set $auth_route_id $upstream_http_x_auth_route_id;

    set $upstream_foo_mcp foo-container;

    rewrite ^/mcp-foo$ /mcp break;
    rewrite ^/mcp-foo/$ /mcp break;
    rewrite ^/mcp-foo/(.+) /$1 break;

    proxy_pass http://$upstream_foo_mcp:8000;

    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_set_header Authorization "";

    proxy_set_header X-Client-ID $auth_client_id;
    proxy_set_header X-Client-Name $auth_client_name;
    proxy_set_header X-Route-ID $auth_route_id;

    proxy_buffering off;
    proxy_request_buffering off;
    proxy_read_timeout 3600s;
    proxy_send_timeout 3600s;
}

After (~8 lines):

location /mcp-foo {
    set $mcp_upstream foo-container;
    set $mcp_port     8000;

    rewrite ^/mcp-foo$       /mcp break;
    rewrite ^/mcp-foo/$      /mcp break;
    rewrite ^/mcp-foo/(.+)   /$1  break;

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/snippets/mcp-location.conf;
}

Important: the snippet uses generic var names $mcp_upstream / $mcp_port. If existing blocks used per-MCP names like $upstream_foo_mcp, rename to $mcp_upstream during refactor. nginx variables are per-request, evaluated inside the matched location — reusing $mcp_upstream across sibling location blocks is fine; each request only enters one of them.

Confirm with the user before refactoring existing blocks. The before/after is mechanical, but it's a working production config — show the diff and reload with nginx -t before nginx -s reload.

Step 7: Reload and Verify

# Inside the nginx container (or on the host, depending on layout)
nginx -t          # syntax check
nginx -s reload   # apply

Smoke tests (from outside the host):

# 1. Auth required — without a bearer token, gatekeeper /auth returns 401.
curl -i https://<DOMAIN>/mcp-<NAME>

# 2. OAuth discovery bypass — should return 404 (not 401), causing Claude Code
#    to fall back to the static bearer in .mcp.json instead of negotiating OAuth.
curl -i https://<DOMAIN>/mcp-<NAME>/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server

# 3. Authenticated MCP request — should return a JSON-RPC initialize response.
curl -i -H "Authorization: Bearer <TOKEN>" \
        -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
        -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
        -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"smoke","version":"0"}}}' \
        https://<DOMAIN>/mcp-<NAME>

Then add to .mcp.json on the client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "<NAME>": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://<DOMAIN>/mcp-<NAME>",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <TOKEN>" }
    }
  }
}

Note: "type": "http", not "sse". The transport on the wire is Streamable-HTTP, even when the underlying SDK class is named ambiguously.

Traps

These are the load-bearing decisions in the emitted config. They look stylistic; they aren't.

Trap 1 — Streamable-HTTP, not SSE

The MCP SDK's SSE transport mounts two endpoints: /sse (the EventSource) and /messages/ (the POST sink). The SDK hands the client a relative URL for /messages/ on connect. Behind a path prefix like /mcp-<NAME>, the client resolves that relative URL to /mcp-<NAME>/messages/, but nothing upstream is mounted there (the SDK mounted /messages/). Result: every client POST 404s.

Streamable-HTTP exposes a single /mcp endpoint with no client-side URL discovery, so path-prefix routing just works.

Fix: configure the MCP server with MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable-http and tell the client "type": "http". Do not try to fix this with nginx rewrites — the relative URL is built in the client.

Trap 2 — The three rewrites

location /mcp-<NAME> matches /mcp-<NAME>, /mcp-<NAME>/, and /mcp-<NAME>/anything. Without rewrites, the proxy_pass forwards the path unmodified — but the upstream only mounts /mcp. You need to map all three forms.

Order matters: nginx evaluates rewrites top to bottom, and break stops further rewrite processing in the location. The literal-match rewrites for ^/mcp-<NAME>$ and ^/mcp-<NAME>/$ come first; the greedy ^/mcp-<NAME>/(.+) comes last and strips the prefix off any subpath. Subpaths the upstream doesn't recognize will 404 from the SDK, which is the right behavior — /mcp-<NAME>/foo was never going to mean anything.

Trap 3 — `.well-known` bypass returns 404, not 401

If you protect /mcp-<NAME>/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server with auth_request /auth, gatekeeper returns 401 for the unauthenticated probe. Claude Code interprets 401 on a .well-known/oauth-* URL as "OAuth is available — let's negotiate" and starts an OAuth flow that will never complete, because there's no OAuth provider behind this endpoint — just gatekeeper bearer auth.

Returning 404 (no auth_request on this regex) tells the client "no OAuth here", and it falls back to the static bearer in .mcp.json.

This is why the regex location ~ ^/mcp-[^/]+/\.well-known/ lives outside any auth_request directive, and is matched before the per-MCP prefix locations (regex locations beat prefix locations in nginx).

Trap 4 — Strip the inbound `Authorization` header

After auth_request /auth succeeds, the original request still carries the client's Authorization: Bearer <token> header. Most MCP servers don't expect to see it (they trust the gatekeeper-injected X-Client-* headers) and some choke on it outright. proxy_set_header Authorization ""; clears it before proxying.

If the upstream MCP server does need the original bearer (rare — usually only if it's doing its own auth on top), remove this line for that MCP only and document the deviation in the per-MCP location block. Do not delete it from the snippet — that would silently change behavior for every MCP that depends on the strip.

Trap 5 — Resolver required for variable proxy_pass

The snippet uses proxy_pass http://$mcp_upstream:$mcp_port;. The variable form forces nginx to resolve the upstream at request time, not at config-load time. That's exactly what we want — MCP containers restart and get new IPs on the docker network, and a static proxy_pass http://foo-container:8000 would cache the first IP forever.

But variable form requires a resolver directive. Without it, nginx fails with "no resolver defined" at request time → 502 to the client, "host not found" in error.log. The greenfield vhost includes resolver 127.0.0.11 valid=10s ipv6=off (docker's embedded DNS). The brownfield path verifies one exists.

Add ipv6=off to the resolver line if any upstream is on a dual-stack hostname (e.g., Cloudflare-fronted public services like a remote gatekeeper). Without it, nginx may pick the AAAA result, try connect() over IPv6, and fail with ENETUNREACH because the default docker bridge is IPv4-only. The failure mode is especially nasty: every protected route returns 403, including routes that were working seconds earlier, because the resolver picks IPv6 non-deterministically. The diagnosis is in error.log (Network is unreachable ... subrequest: "/auth"), not in the access log or gatekeeper logs.

Trap 6 — Buffering off, timeouts long

proxy_buffering off and proxy_request_buffering off are non-negotiable for Streamable-HTTP. With buffering on, nginx accumulates response chunks until either the buffer fills or the upstream closes the stream — the client sees a long silence followed by a wall of events. The whole point of streaming is incremental delivery.

proxy_read_timeout 3600s and proxy_send_timeout 3600s survive long idle periods on a stream. nginx's defaults (60s) will kill a perfectly healthy streaming connection that happens to go quiet for a minute.

Trap 7 — Snippet lives under `conf.d/snippets/`, not `conf.d/`

nginx auto-loads conf.d/*.conf at the http{} level. The MCP snippet is location{}-level config — auth_request, proxy_pass, proxy_set_header are not valid at http scope. If you put mcp-location.conf directly in conf.d/, nginx will fail to start with "X" directive is not allowed here.

The snippets/ subdirectory keeps the snippet outside auto-loading, and each location block explicitly includes it. This is the same pattern used by auth-gatekeeper.conf, cloudflare-real-ip.conf, and scanner-blocklist.conf in the ByteForge stack.

Failure Decoder

| Symptom | Likely Cause | Fix | |---|---|---| | nginx: [emerg] "auth_request" directive is not allowed here on reload | Snippet placed in conf.d/ root (auto-loaded into http{} scope) | Move to conf.d/snippets/; ensure no *.conf glob picks it up. See Trap 7 | | 502 Bad Gateway immediately on first request; error log says no resolver defined to resolve | Missing resolver directive | Add resolver 127.0.0.11 valid=10s; to the server block. See Trap 5 | | 502 Bad Gateway shortly after container restart, was working before | Cached pre-restart IP — valid=10s should expire within seconds; or upstream is genuinely down | docker ps to confirm container is up; docker logs <UPSTREAM_CONTAINER> for crashes | | 403 Forbidden from nginx on every /mcp-* route, including ones that worked minutes ago. error.log shows connect() to [<v6>]:... failed (101: Network is unreachable) ... subrequest: "/auth" | Resolver missing ipv6=off; auth/proxy upstream is dual-stack but docker bridge is IPv4-only | Add ipv6=off to the resolver directive. See Trap 5 | | 401 Unauthorized even with what should be a valid bearer token | Token doesn't match a gatekeeper-registered route, or auth-gatekeeper.conf not included in this vhost | Confirm include …/auth-gatekeeper.conf is inside the server block; check gatekeeper's route + token config | | 404 Not Found from upstream on POST after SSE connect | Using SSE transport behind a path prefix — /messages/ resolved relative on the client | Switch server + client to streamable-http. See Trap 1 | | Claude Code stuck in OAuth-discovery loop, never uses the bearer in .mcp.json | .well-known returns 401 (protected) instead of 404 | Verify the ~ ^/mcp-[^/]+/\.well-known/ location is present and returns 404 unconditionally. See Trap 3 | | Stream connects, then 60 seconds of silence, then everything arrives at once | proxy_buffering not off, or proxy_read_timeout at default | Confirm snippet is included in the location block. See Trap 6 | | MCP server returns "missing required header" or rejects the request | Either Authorization not stripped (upstream confused by stale bearer) OR X-Client-* headers not arriving | Confirm proxy_set_header Authorization ""; and the three X-Client-* lines are present in the snippet. See Trap 4 | | Two MCP locations route to the same upstream | Copy-paste bug — both blocks set $mcp_upstream to the same value | Each location's set is location-scoped; check the literal value in each block | | nginx -t says unknown "mcp_upstream" variable | A proxy_pass http://$mcp_upstream:$mcp_port; somewhere outside a location block (e.g., directly in server{}) — set only works inside location{} | Move the upstream/port set lines and the include into a location {} block |

Marketplace Registration

If you're adding this skill to a marketplace repo (e.g., byteforge-claude-skills), append the skill path to .claude-plugin/marketplace.json:

"skills": [
    ...,
    "./skills/mcp-server-nginx-gatekeeper"
]

And update the plugin's umbrella description to mention "MCP server nginx vhost with Gatekeeper auth" alongside the other skills.

Agent Skills: MCP server nginx vhost with Gatekeeper auth

Install this agent skill to your local

Skill Files