1. The problem I’m having:
I thought it might be fun to insert a sort-of response header easter egg that includes a random word. The choice is a long story 
e.g. X-Tagalog: Umaga
Turns out it’s a bit tricker than I expected so hoping I can get some guidance.
I thought the easiest way would to spin up a local server that just spits back the X-Color header and then copy that into the response headers but reverse_proxy doesn’t appear to be the way to go.
Another option might be to somehow get the header in using placeholders but I can’t see how you can get external info that way either.
Any pointers appreciated.
2. Error messages and/or full log output:
I don’t have any log files to share at this stage as it’s more of a how-to question
3. Caddy version:
Caddy version: 2.10.2
4. How I installed and ran Caddy:
Via apt which runs via systemd
a. System environment:
This is a standard VM running Ubuntu. No Docker etc involved.
$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=24.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=noble
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS"
b. Command:
sudo systemctl start caddy.service
c. Service/unit/compose file:
d. My complete Caddy config:
Not a lot to see as very bare bones at the moment.
kinoy.io {
# redirect to www
redir https://www.{host}{uri}
}
www.kinoy.io {
root * /var/www/kinoy.io
encode
log {
output file /var/log/caddy/kinoy.io.log {
roll_size 10MB # Create new file when size exceeds 10MB
roll_keep 5 # Keep at most 5 rolled files
roll_keep_for 30d
}
format console
}
file_server
}
5. Links to relevant resources:
Python to generate the word is very simple.
from http.server import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler
import random
def load_words(filename="words.txt"):
"""Reads words from a file, one word per line, and returns a list."""
try:
with open(filename, 'r') as f:
# Read all lines, strip whitespace (like the newline character) from each
words = [line.strip() for line in f if line.strip()]
return words
except FileNotFoundError:
print(f"ERROR: Word file '{filename}' not found. Falling back to default list.")
return ["maliit", "dalawa", "mahal", "pera", "asawa"] # Fallback
# --- Load the words once when the script starts ---
words = load_words()
num_words = len(words)
# Ensure we have a list to work with
if num_words == 0:
print("WARNING: Word list is empty. Server will return default.")
# --------------------------------------------------
class HeaderHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
def do_GET(self):
if num_words > 0:
word = random.choice(words)
else:
word = "kamali" # tagalog for mistake
self.send_response(200)
self.send_header('X-Tagalog', word)
self.send_header('Content-Type', 'text/plain')
self.end_headers()
self.wfile.write(b'')
port = 8080
print(f"Server starting on port {port} with {num_words} words loaded.")
HTTPServer(('localhost', port), HeaderHandler).serve_forever()