---
title: "HTTP / HTTPS"
description: "Publish websites, APIs, and dashboards as authenticated public reverse proxies"
---

import PangolinCloudTocCta from "/snippets/pangolin-cloud-toc-cta.mdx";

<PangolinCloudTocCta />

HTTP and HTTPS public resources are the most common public resource type. They expose a web application or API on a fully qualified domain name with a valid TLS certificate, fronted by Pangolin's authenticated reverse proxy.

Users open the resource URL in any web browser. No Pangolin client is required.

## How It Works

1. You assign a FQDN on a domain managed in Pangolin.
2. Pangolin terminates TLS and applies [authentication and access rules](/manage/resources/public/authentication).
3. Authenticated requests are proxied through a site connector to your backend target.

Pangolin acts as a front-door barrier: unauthenticated visitors are redirected to a Pangolin login page before traffic reaches your application.

## Target Configuration

HTTP/HTTPS resources use **[targets](/manage/resources/public/targets)** to define where traffic is sent on your remote network.

- Add one or more targets, each with an upstream address and port.
- Assign each target to a site. Targets on different sites enable [round-robin load balancing](/manage/resources/public/targets#multi-site-targets) and [automatic failover](/manage/resources/public/healthchecks-failover).
- Optionally configure path-based routing, path rewriting, custom host headers, and other proxy settings.

This multi-target model differs from SSH, RDP, and VNC public resources, which use site selection and a single host/port instead of discrete targets.

## Authentication and Access Rules

HTTP/HTTPS resources are protocol-aware and fully support Pangolin's identity and context policies:

- Platform SSO and external identity providers
- User, role, and machine access assignments
- PIN, passcode, shareable links, and email OTP
- Ranked allow/deny rules for IP, geolocation, URL paths, and more

See [Authentication](/manage/resources/public/authentication) for the full list of options. To share the same settings across multiple resources, use a [resource policy](/manage/resources/public/resource-policies).