Setting up SSL locally - Posthog

Setting up HTTPS locally can be useful if you're trying to debug hard to replicate issues (e.g cross domain cookies, etc).

There are two ways you can get HTTPS locally:

ngrok
NGINX and a local certificate.

The easiest option is to use ngrok.

Set up SSL via ngrok

Sign up for an ngrok account (or sign in with GitHub) and run ngrok authtoken <TOKEN>
Find your ngrok config file location:

bash

ngrok config check --log=stdout

On macOS, this will show ~/Library/Application Support/ngrok/ngrok.yml (XDG location). The legacy location ~/.ngrok2/ngrok.yml is deprecated.

Edit your ngrok config file and add the following after the line with authtoken: <TOKEN>:

yaml

tunnels:
  django:
    proto: http
    addr: 8000
  webpack:
    proto: http
    addr: 8234

Start ngrok. This will give you tunnel URLs such as https://68f83839843a.ngrok-free.dev

bash

ngrok start --all

Copy the HTTPS URL for the tunnel to port 8234 and set it as the value for the JS_URL environment variable. Then, start webpack:

bash

export WEBPACK_HOT_RELOAD_HOST=0.0.0.0
export LOCAL_HTTPS=1
export JS_URL=https://68f83839843a.ngrok-free.dev
pnpm start

Use the same URL as the value for JS_URL again and start the Django server

bash

export DEBUG=1
export LOCAL_HTTPS=1
export JS_URL=https://68f83839843a.ngrok-free.dev
python manage.py runserver

Open the HTTPS URL for the tunnel to port 8000.

Tips & Tricks

If you're testing the Toolbar, make sure to add the ngrok urls to the list on the 'Project Settings' page.

Also, watch out, network requests can be slow through ngrok:

Set up SSL via NGINX and a local certificate

Update openssl if "openssl version" tells you "LibreSSL" or something like that.

In case brew install openssl and brew link openssl don't work well, use /usr/local/opt/openssl/bin/openssl instead of openssl in the next step.

Create key

bash

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -days 3650 -nodes \
  -keyout localhost.key -out localhost.crt -subj "/CN=secure.posthog.dev" \
  -addext "subjectAltName=DNS:secure.posthog.dev,IP:10.0.0.1"

Trust the key for Chrome/Safari

bash

sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain localhost.crt

Add secure.posthog.dev to /etc/hosts

text

127.0.0.1 secure.posthog.dev

Install nginx (brew install nginx) and add the following config in /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

nginx

     upstream backend {
         server 127.0.0.1:8000;
     }
     server {
         server_name secure.posthog.dev;
         rewrite ^(.*) https://secure.posthog.dev$1 permanent;
     }

     server {
         listen       443 ssl;
         server_name  secure.posthog.dev;
         ssl_certificate  /path/to/your/certs/localhost.crt;
         ssl_certificate_key /path/to/your/certs/localhost.key;
         ssl_prefer_server_ciphers  on;
         ssl_session_cache    shared:SSL:1m;
         ssl_session_timeout  5m;
         ssl_ciphers          HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
         location / {
            proxy_pass http://backend;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
            proxy_redirect off;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
         }
         location /static/ {
            proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8234/static/;
        }
     }

Add the following command to start nginx

bash

nginx -p /usr/local/etc/nginx/ -c /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

You can stop the nginx server with

bash

nginx -p /usr/local/etc/nginx/ -c /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf -s stop

To run local development, use

bash

bin/hogli start