Image Redirect

The Image URL setting under General Settings lets you bounce any request whose path starts with /images/ off to a different host — typically a CDN or dedicated image server — so those bytes never hit your proxy or backend.

How it works

When image_url is set, the proxy intercepts matching requests before firewall checks, geo/ASN rules, or URL replacements, and responds with a 302 Found redirect. The client's browser (or HTTP client) follows the redirect and fetches directly from the image host.

Config:    image_url = "https://cdn.example.com"
Request:   GET /images/logos/acme.png
Response:  302 Found
           Location: https://cdn.example.com/images/logos/acme.png

The full path (including /images/ prefix) is appended to the configured URL. Trailing slashes on image_url are trimmed, so https://cdn.example.com and https://cdn.example.com/ behave identically.

When to use it

• Offload static image traffic from the proxy VPS to a CDN
• Serve user-uploaded images from object storage (R2, S3) without proxying every byte
• Split image hosting onto a cheaper or geographically closer host

When it doesn't apply

• Leave image_url empty to disable — /images/* requests then flow through the normal proxy pipeline to the port's backend.
• The rule only matches the /images/ path prefix. Images served under /assets/, /media/, /static/, or similar paths are not redirected by this setting.
• This is a browser redirect, not a reverse-proxy pass-through. Clients that don't follow redirects will see the 302 and fail.

Interaction with other rules

Image redirect runs before every other proxy rule, so:

• Geo blocking does not apply to redirected image requests.
• Firewall rate limits do not count redirected image requests.
• URL and ASN replacements are not evaluated for matching paths.

If you need firewall or geo rules to apply to image traffic, leave image_url empty and let the request flow through the proxy normally.