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Aegis Gateway

Aegis Gateway is a simple way to put a secure front door in front of your websites and web applications.

What Aegis Gateway Does for You

Aegis Gateway gives you one central point where you can safely expose services that would otherwise be hard to secure. You can:

  • Protect one or more back-end websites with automatically created, browser-trusted certificates.
  • Provide a single public address for several services running on different servers.
  • Keep services safe even when they use self-signed or unverified certificates behind the scenes.
  • Let remote systems create secure tunnels so apps behind a firewall can be reached from the internet.

Why It’s Better Than Managing Certificates and Firewalls Yourself

Setting up secure certificates, reverse proxies, and firewall rules for every service can become complicated quickly. Aegis Gateway brings these pieces together in one place.

That means:

  • Certificates are created and renewed for you automatically, so they do not expire unexpectedly.
  • You manage access through one gateway instead of changing settings on every server.
  • Services with self-signed certificates are still trusted by outside visitors.
  • Remote apps and devices can connect safely through a restricted tunnel account.
  • You spend less time on manual configuration and more time on your actual project.

[!TIP] If you already run services with self-signed certificates, Aegis Gateway can make them appear secure to visitors without changing the services themselves.

Quick Start with Docker

You can run Aegis Gateway locally using Docker. This example opens the web ports and the optional SSH tunnel port, and stores the database and certificates on your computer.

mkdir -p ./aegis-gateway/data

docker run -d \
  --name aegis-gateway \
  -e AEGIS_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin \
  -e AEGIS_ADMIN_PASSWORD='replace-with-strong-password' \
  -e LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=you@example.com \
  -e LETSENCRYPT_MODE=staging \
  -e NITRITE_DB_PATH=/app/data/proxy_manager.db \
  -v "$(pwd)/aegis-gateway/data:/app/data" \
  -p 80:80 \
  -p 443:443 \
  -p 8443:8443 \
  -p 2222:22 \
  jadaptive/aegis-gateway:latest

[!NOTE] - Port 80 handles certificate validation and redirects visitors to the secure address. - Port 443 is the secure address visitors will use. - Port 8443 is the management dashboard and API. - Port 2222 is the optional SSH tunnel account.

[!TIP] Mount /app/data to a folder on your host so your database and certificates are kept when the container is recreated.

[!IMPORTANT] LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL is required for issuing certificates. LETSENCRYPT_MODE defaults to staging for safe testing. Change it to production when you are ready for real certificates.

Once it’s running:

  1. Open https://localhost:8443 in your browser.
  2. Log in with the username and password you set above.
  3. Add your back-end services and choose the addresses you want to expose.

Licensing

Aegis Gateway is available as a fully featured Community Edition. There are no limits on how many services you can protect, and you can run it yourself with Docker.

At Jadaptive, we believe the software itself should be freely available, while expert help and advanced support are where the value lies. You can read more in our manifesto.

What’s Included in Community Edition

  • The full Aegis Gateway experience.
  • No limits on the number of protected services.
  • A simple Docker-based setup you host yourself.

Keeping Community Edition Active

The Community Edition needs to connect to activation.jadaptive.com occasionally. It sends a small, anonymous heartbeat so we know the service is active. This heartbeat includes simple counts like how many services and certificates you have. It does not include any personal information such as names, email addresses, or private keys.