Does apache ProxyPass handle tls for websocket too?

Question

I'm new to proxypass, Let's say this is our config:

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>
        # The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port that
        # the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
        # redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
        # specifies what hostname must appear in the request's Host: header to
        # match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
        # value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
        # However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.
        #ServerName www.example.com

        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        # Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
        # error, crit, alert, emerg.
        # It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
        # modules, e.g.
        #LogLevel info ssl:warn

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        # For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
        # enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
        # include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
        # following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
        # after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
        #Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf


ServerName www.xzos.net
Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
ServerAlias xzos.net
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.xzos.net/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.xzos.net/privkey.pem

<LocationMatch "/ray/">
        ProxyPass ws://127.0.0.1:1080/ray/ upgrade=WebSocket
        ProxyAddHeaders Off
        ProxyPreserveHost On
        RequestHeader set Host %{HTTP_HOST}s
        RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-For %{REMOTE_ADDR}s
</LocationMatch>
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule

Since we provided these to apache

SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.xzos.net/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.xzos.net/privkey.pem

We shouldn't need to use them in the websocket server running on ws://127.0.0.1:1080/ray/ as well, is that correct?

Even though we can do that but apache handles it right? and that's redundant to do it twice specially since this is a local server, I guess. I think if we do that then ws://127.0.0.1:1080/ray/ needs to become wss://127.0.0.1:1080/ray/ and inside of that websocket server we provide the same certificate keys.

Answer 1

Using proxyPass to proxy to an unsecured listener on localhost can still expose an attack surface. Are you concerned about somebody sniffing traffic on localhost? If I were a nefarious person with the appropriate access i could tcpdump on the loopback interface on port 1080 and read the traffic. If you use wss:// then it would be more difficult to do so. I would use TLS on both links unless there is a technical reason not to or if I was debugging the application and needed to get more information during that process.

Answer 2

I can add my two cents.

Let's focus on <LocationMatch "/ray/">. How is Apache supposed to recognize the path /ray/ if it is encapsulated in a TLS encrypted channel? Of course Apache has to handle TLS in order to decrypt the http handshake and see GET /whatever/, then decide if it matches the location.