Configure Nginx to use TLS 1.2 and 1.3 only

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Originally published at: https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/configure-nginx-to-use-only-tls-1-1-and-1-2/

How do I enable and configure TLS 1.2 and 1.3 only in Nginx web server?

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My Nginx config that supports both TLS versions 1.2 and 1.3:

mkdir  /etc/ssl/

Added to my nginx.conf:

server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen [::]:80 default_server;
    server www.example.com;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    server www.example.com;
    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/www.example.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/www.example.key.pem;
    ssl_session_timeout 1d;
    ssl_session_cache shared:MozSSL:10m;  # about 40000 sessions
    ssl_session_tickets off;

    # curl https://ssl-config.mozilla.org/ffdhe2048.txt > /etc/ssl/dhparam.pem
    ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/dhparam.pem;

    # intermediate configuration
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers off;

    # HSTS (ngx_http_headers_module is required) (63072000 seconds)
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000" always;

    # OCSP stapling
    ssl_stapling on;
    ssl_stapling_verify on;

    # verify chain of trust of OCSP response using Root CA and Intermediate certs
    ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/ssl/www.example.pem;

    # replace with the IP address of your resolver
    resolver 127.0.0.1;
}

I take my Nginx server config from https://ssl-config.mozilla.org/ and later check using SSL Server Test (Powered by Qualys SSL Labs) instead of boring openssl command.

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