Secure MCP Server with NGINX, Supergateway, and Render

How to securely expose a Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server using Supergateway, protected by NGINX basic authentication, and deployed to Render. The full article is on dev.to.

Overview

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an emerging open standard for connecting AI assistants like Claude to external tools. This setup allows running MCP services remotely and securely.

Architecture

• MCP Server: Based on @openbnb/mcp-server-airbnb.
• Supergateway: Bridges stdio-based MCP servers to SSE/WebSocket.
• NGINX: Handles SSL termination and basic authentication.
• Render: Deploys the combined service in the cloud using Docker.

Features

• Expose MCP via HTTP (SSE/WebSocket).
• Secure access using Basic Auth.
• Deploy seamlessly on Render.

© Copyright

See LICENSE for details.