Nginx

Pontoon runs using a Python WSGI HTTP server named Gunicorn. This server is not designed to deal with slow clients, so it needs a proxy server to buffer them. We will see in this section how to install and configure Nginx as proxy server for Pontoon.

Warning

Pontoon only works with HTTPS so you will need a TLS certificate (you can get one for free using let’s encrypt).

Installing Nginx

To install Nginx, simply run the following command:

apt install nginx

Configuring a Nginx Vhost For Pontoon

We provide a sample Nginx vhost in debian/pontoon.nginx.conf, so we will start by copying it to the Nginx folder:

cp /opt/pontoon/current/debian/pontoon.nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/

Now you should edit that file to configure at least the server name and the paths to the certificate:

server {
    listen 80;
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name pontoon.example.com;

    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key;

    # [...]

}

You can show the complete file on GitHub.

Once configured, you just have to enable the vhost by creating a symbolic link:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pontoon.nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/pontoon.nginx.conf

And to reload the Nginx configuration:

systemctl reload nginx

If everything is OK, you should now be able to access your Pontoon instance using your favorite web browser.