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7.58172 20 12 20C15.0583 20 17.7158 18.2839 19.062 15.7621C18.3945 15.9187 17.7035 16 17 16C12.0294 16 8 11.9706 8 7C8 6.29648 8.08133 5.60547 8.2379 4.938C5.71611 6.28423 4 8.9417 4 12Z" fill=currentColor></path></svg></button><button aria-label="table of content" id=toc-toggle><svg viewbox="0 0 24 24" height=24 width=24 xmlns=http://www.w3.org/2000/svg><path d="M3 4H21V6H3V4ZM3 11H15V13H3V11ZM3 18H21V20H3V18Z" fill=currentColor></path></svg></button></div></div></header><div id=wrapper><div id=blank></div><aside class=blur><nav><ul><li><a class=h2 href=#introduction>Introduction</a><li><a class=h2 href=#setting-up-searxng>Setting up SearXNG</a> <ul><li><a class=h3 href=#installing-the-service>Installing the service</a><li><a class=h3 href=#setting-up-a-reverse-proxy>Setting up a reverse proxy</a></ul></ul></nav><button aria-label="back to top" id=back-to-top><svg viewbox="0 0 24 24" height=24 width=24 xmlns=http://www.w3.org/2000/svg><path d="M11.9997 10.8284L7.04996 15.7782L5.63574 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viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" height="20"><path d="M9.41421 8L18.0208 16.6066L16.6066 18.0208L8 9.41421V17H6V6H17V8H9.41421Z" fill="currentColor"></path></svg>' class=prose><h1>Host your own private search engine with SearXNG</h1><div id=post-info><div id=date><span id=publish>2023-12-31</span></div><div id=tags><a href=https://devraza.giize.com/tags/searxng><span>#</span>searxng</a><a href=https://devraza.giize.com/tags/privacy><span>#</span>privacy</a><a href=https://devraza.giize.com/tags/selfhosted><span>#</span>selfhosted</a><a href=https://devraza.giize.com/tags/nixos><span>#</span>nixos</a></div></div><h1 id=introduction>Introduction<a aria-label="Anchor link for: introduction" class=zola-anchor href=#introduction>#</a></h1><p><a rel="nofollow noreferrer" href=https://docs.searxng.org/>SearXNG</a>, put in its own words, is a 'free internet metasearch engine'. Note that it describes itself as a <em>metasearch</em> engine specifically - unlike your traditional search engine like Google or Bing, SearXNG does things a little bit differently: It aggregrates the results produced by search services like those aforementioned, and feeds them back to you.<p>Because of this key detail and a great deal of effort by those who've helped shape it, SearXNG protects your privacy, and does so very well:<ul><li>Private data from requests going to the search services it aggregrates results from is removed<li>It does <strong>not</strong> forward <em>anything</em> to any third parties through search services<li>Private data is <em>also</em> removed from requests going to the results pages</ul><p>Furthermore, SearXNG can be configured to use <a rel="nofollow noreferrer" href=https://torproject.org>Tor</a>.<p>However, the aspect of privacy isn't the only great selling feature of the engine; from my use of the engine so far, it's also great at...searching (is that a surprise?). The fact that it's a metasearch engine plays a key role in this, as it provides SearXNG the ability to pull content more efficiently and gives <em>you</em> the ability to further tailor your experience.<h1 id=setting-up-searxng>Setting up SearXNG<a aria-label="Anchor link for: setting-up-searxng" class=zola-anchor href=#setting-up-searxng>#</a></h1><h2 id=installing-the-service>Installing the service<a aria-label="Anchor link for: installing-the-service" class=zola-anchor href=#installing-the-service>#</a></h2><p>As you may have expected if you've used NixOS for a while, searxng is packaged <em>and</em> has a service on NixOS. This makes setting it up just that much easier.<p>To get started, place somewhere in your <em>system</em> config the following:<pre class=language-nix data-lang=nix style=background:#151515;color:#e8e8d3><code class=language-nix data-lang=nix><span>{
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#888># ...
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>services</span><span>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>searx </span><span>= {
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>enable </span><span>= true;
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>settings </span><span>= {
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>server </span><span>= {
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>port </span><span>= </span><span style=color:#cf6a4c>8888</span><span>;
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>bind_address </span><span>= </span><span style=color:#99ad6a>"127.0.0.1"</span><span>;
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>secret_key </span><span>= </span><span style=color:#99ad6a>"@SEARX_SECRET_KEY@"</span><span>;
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>base_url </span><span>= </span><span style=color:#99ad6a>"https://search.devraza.duckdns.org/"</span><span>; </span><span style=color:#888># replace with wherever you want to host yours
</span><span> };
</span><span> };
</span><span> };
</span><span> </span><span style=color:#888># ...
</span><span>}
</span></code></pre><p>The snippet above starts the <code>searx</code> systemd service for listening on port <code>8888</code>, and assumes a <code>base_url</code> of <code>https://search.devraza.duckdns.org</code>.<p>Now that we've got the actual <code>searx</code> instance running, we can now set up a reverse proxy allowing the service to be accessed remotely (whether this is within your local network or across the internet is up to you).<h2 id=setting-up-a-reverse-proxy>Setting up a reverse proxy<a aria-label="Anchor link for: setting-up-a-reverse-proxy" class=zola-anchor href=#setting-up-a-reverse-proxy>#</a></h2><h3 id=what-is-a-reverse-proxy>What is a reverse proxy?<a aria-label="Anchor link for: what-is-a-reverse-proxy" class=zola-anchor href=#what-is-a-reverse-proxy>#</a></h3><p>Before I get started with the technical details of setting this up, I'd like to briefly clarify what a reverse proxy exactly is (to my understanding).<p>Let's get the wikipedia definition of reverse proxy out of the way first:<blockquote><p>[...] a reverse proxy is an application that sits in front of back-end applications and forwards client requests to those applications. [...]</blockquote><p>However, you might be confused as to what this actually means; I'll give an example of the usage of reverse proxies to better explain this:<ul><li>Suppose you've got a few services running on a server (for demonstration purposes, let's name these <code>x</code>, <code>y</code> and <code>z</code>), each running on their own unique port.<li>Assuming you had a domain, and wanted to access all of these services from their own unique sub-domains (e.g. <code>x.yourdomain.com</code>, <code>y.yourdomain.com</code> and <code>z.yourdomain.com</code>), you would have to use a reverse proxy.<li>This reverse proxy would take in requests from clients going to sub-domains, and forward these requests to the appropriate port on your machine for the service being requested.</ul><p>The concept should be clear now, if it wasn't already.<h3 id=using-nginx-to-set-up-the-reverse-proxy>Using NGINX to set up the reverse proxy<a aria-label="Anchor link for: using-nginx-to-set-up-the-reverse-proxy" class=zola-anchor href=#using-nginx-to-set-up-the-reverse-proxy>#</a></h3><p>NGINX is a popular web server that supports the creation of virtual hosts and the usage of reverse proxies. To accomodate our <code>searx</code> instance, we append the following to our NixOS server configuration:<pre class=language-nix data-lang=nix data-linenos style=background:#151515;color:#e8e8d3><code class=language-nix data-lang=nix><table><tbody><tr><td>1<td><span>{
</span><tr><td>2<td><span> </span><span style=color:#888># ...
</span><tr><td>3<td><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>services</span><span>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>nginx </span><span>= {
</span><tr><td>4<td><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>enable </span><span>= true;
</span><tr><td>5<td><span> </span><span style=color:#888># any extra configuration here
</span><tr><td>6<td><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>virtualHosts </span><span>= {
</span><tr><td>7<td><span> </span><span style=color:#99ad6a>"search" </span><span>= { </span><span style=color:#888># this can be anything, being an arbitrary identifier
</span><tr><td>8<td><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>forceSSL </span><span>= true;
</span><tr><td>9<td><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>serverName </span><span>= </span><span style=color:#99ad6a>"search.yourdomain.com"</span><span>; </span><span style=color:#888># replace this with whatever you're serving from
</span><tr><td>10<td><span> </span><span style=color:#888># SearX proxy
</span><tr><td>11<td><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>locations</span><span>.</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>"/" </span><span>= {
</span><tr><td><mark style=background:#010101>12</mark><td><mark style=background:#010101><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>proxyPass </span><span>= </span><span style=color:#99ad6a>"http://${toString </span><span style=color:#ffb964>config</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>services</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>searx</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>settings</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>server</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>bind_address</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>}:${toString </span><span style=color:#ffb964>config</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>services</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>searx</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>settings</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>server</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>.</span><span style=color:#ffb964>port</span><span style=color:#99ad6a>}"</span><span>;
</span></mark><tr><td>13<td><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>proxyWebsockets </span><span>= true;
</span><tr><td>14<td><span> </span><span style=color:#ffb964>recommendedProxySettings </span><span>= true;
</span><tr><td>15<td><span> };
</span><tr><td>16<td><span> };
</span><tr><td>17<td><span> };
</span><tr><td>18<td><span> };
</span><tr><td>19<td><span> </span><span style=color:#888># ...
</span><tr><td>20<td><span>}
</span></table></code></pre><blockquote class="callout note"><div class=icon><svg viewbox="0 0 24 24" height=20 width=20 xmlns=http://www.w3.org/2000/svg><path d="M12 22C6.47715 22 2 17.5228 2 12C2 6.47715 6.47715 2 12 2C17.5228 2 22 6.47715 22 12C22 17.5228 17.5228 22 12 22ZM12 20C16.4183 20 20 16.4183 20 12C20 7.58172 16.4183 4 12 4C7.58172 4 4 7.58172 4 12C4 16.4183 7.58172 20 12 20ZM11 7H13V9H11V7ZM11 11H13V17H11V11Z" fill=currentColor></path></svg></div><div class=content><p><strong>Note</strong><p>The expression highlighted above is used to dynamically adjust the location NGINX will forward requests to, depending on your <code>searx</code> config</div></blockquote><p>After saving your changes and rebuilding your server's system configuration (as usual), you should have a working <em>private</em> instance of SearXNG that you can access using the <code>serverName</code> you've given it.<p>Set your browser to use this as your search engine using the relevant documentation (with Firefox this is as easy as right-clicking on the URL after opening up the page and clicking a button). Enjoy!</article><div class=giscus></div></div><footer><div class=copyright><p>© 2024 Muhammad Nauman Raza</div><div class=credits>powered by <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href=https://www.getzola.org target=_blank>zola</a> and <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href=https://github.com/isunjn/serene target=_blank>serene</a></div></footer></main></div><script src=/js/lightense.min.js></script><script src=/js/main.js></script>
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