Notes on how to successfully run faye in a rails app using thin behind a https / SSL nginx proxy with basic auth

config.ru

require 'faye'

Faye::WebSocket.load_adapter('thin')
use Faye::RackAdapter, :mount => '/faye', :timeout => 25

require ::File.expand_path('../config/environment',  __FILE__)
run App::Application

faye.js.coffee

faye_url = "#{window.location.protocol}//#{window.location.host}/faye"
faye = new Faye.Client(faye_url)

# We need to disable both of these to get faye to use long-polling
faye.disable('websocket')
faye.disable('eventsource')

nginx.conf

server {
  listen 443;
  server_name example.com;

  ssl                  on;
  ssl_certificate      ssl.crt;
  ssl_certificate_key  ssl.key;
  ssl_session_timeout  5m;

  ssl_protocols  SSLv2 SSLv3 TLSv1;
  ssl_ciphers  ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP;
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;

  location / {
    auth_basic            "Restricted";
    auth_basic_user_file  /etc/nginx/htpass;
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:4488;
  }
}

start_command.sh

bundle exec thin start -p 4488

Is there a way for nginx to forward websockets?

do we require to use a different certificate from what we are using for the Rails server?