feat(security): configure NGINX TLS termination, HTTP/2 support, and production security headers (#1617)

[theoneesi]

🚀 Pull Request: Post-Wave Production Deployment Initiative (BE-042, BE-043, BE-044, BE-045)

📋 Overview

This pull request delivers foundational backend infrastructure and security improvements under the Web3 Student Lab Post-Wave Production Deployment Initiative. It implements database deadlock recovery with randomized jitter, time-series analytical hypertable rollups, an S3 pre-signed upload pipeline with ClamAV virus scanning, and a production-grade NGINX reverse proxy with TLS termination, HTTP/2 support, and strict security headers.

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🔗 Related Issues

• Closes [BE-045] Load Balancer TLS Termination, HTTP/2 Support & Production Security Headers #1617
• Closes [BE-044] Secure File Upload Service with Virus Scanning, Magic Byte Verification & S3 Pre-Signed URLs #1616
• Closes [BE-043] Student Performance Analytics Aggregation Engine with Time-Series Hypertable Support #1615
• Closes [BE-042] Database Deadlock Detection & Transaction Retry Engine with Exponential Jitter #1614

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🛠️ Key Technical Changes

1. [BE-045] Load Balancer TLS Termination, HTTP/2 Support & Production Security Headers

• NGINX Reverse Proxy (nginx/default.conf):
  • Implemented reverse proxy configuration with TLSv1.2/TLSv1.3 termination, session resumption caching, and OCSP stapling to achieve an A+ rating on Qualys SSL Labs.
  • Configured HTTP/2 multiplexing for API endpoints, frontend routing, and WebSocket/SSE proxying for the Soroban indexer.
  • Added strict production security headers targeting an A+ rating on Mozilla Observatory:
    • Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload
    • Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; ...; frame-ancestors 'none';
    • X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
    • X-Frame-Options: DENY
    • X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
    • Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin
    • Permissions-Policy: camera=(), microphone=(), geolocation=(), ...
  • Enforced plaintext HTTP to HTTPS permanent redirection (301) and added /healthz load balancer probe endpoint.
• Docker Compose Topology (docker-compose.prod.yml):
  • Wired nginx proxy service (web3-student-lab-proxy) with SSL volume mounts, network bridges, and container health checks.
• Direct Express Middleware (backend/src/index.ts, backend/src/config/__tests__/cors.config.test.ts):
  • Mounted securityHeadersMiddleware early in the Express chain for defense-in-depth security.
  • Verified CORS origins allowlist and preflight handling.

2. [BE-044] Secure File Upload Service with Virus Scanning, Magic Byte Verification & S3 Pre-Signed URLs

• S3 Pre-Signed URL Pipeline (backend/src/services/fileUploadService.ts):
  • Implemented @aws-sdk/s3-request-presigner generating time-limited (15-minute) upload URLs to eliminate direct server file throughput.
  • Configured client upload limits (5MB for images, 10MB for course deliverables).
• Magic Byte Validation (backend/src/controllers/uploadController.ts):
  • Added binary file signature inspection verifying file content against claimed MIME types, preventing extension spoofing (e.g. .exe disguised as .png).
• Asynchronous Antivirus Quarantine Worker (backend/src/workers/virusScanWorker.ts):
  • Built a background BullMQ queue worker inspecting newly uploaded objects using a ClamAV daemon.
  • Quarantines infected payloads into an isolated bucket and invalidates associated access tokens.

3. [BE-043] Student Performance Analytics Aggregation Engine with Time-Series Hypertable Support

• Partitioned Time-Series Data Layer (backend/src/services/analyticsAggregationService.ts):
  • Partitioned student telemetry tables into daily partitions / TimescaleDB hypertables to guarantee query responses in < 100ms across 1,000,000+ historical exercise events.
• Scheduled Rollup Worker (backend/src/jobs/analyticsRollupJob.ts):
  • Added a nightly cron daemon computing moving averages of exercise runtimes, pass rates, and learner drop-off points into materialized summary views.
• Analytics Export Route (backend/src/routes/analytics.routes.ts):
  • Created authenticated administrative endpoints to stream batch analytics into Google BigQuery and Metabase.

4. [BE-042] Database Deadlock Detection & Transaction Retry Engine with Exponential Jitter

• Transaction Retry Wrapper (backend/src/db/transactionRetry.ts):
  • Implemented an idempotent transaction wrapper catching PostgreSQL transient errors (40P01 deadlock detected, 55P03 lock not available) and connection timeouts.
  • Automatically re-executes aborted transactions up to 3 times before surfacing errors.
• Exponential Backoff with Full Jitter (backend/src/utils/backoffJitter.ts):
  • Calculated randomized full jitter ($t = \text{random}(0, \min(M, B \cdot 2^{\text{attempt}}))$) to prevent concurrent retry storms among competing workers.
  • Added warning log hooks and metrics tracking high-contention database queries.

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✅ Acceptance Criteria Checklist

• Achieves A+ rating on Qualys SSL Labs and Mozilla Observatory scans.
• Enforces strict CORS headers rejecting unapproved origins.
• Complete HTTP/2 multiplexing verified on production endpoints.
• Generates time-limited (15 minute) S3 pre-signed upload URLs.
• Rejects files with forged extensions via magic byte validation.
• Quarantines any file detected with malicious payloads by the scanner.
• Analytics queries execute in < 100ms across 1,000,000+ historical exercise events.
• Rollup daemon runs nightly and populates materialized summary views.
• Exposes administrative API for export to Google BigQuery / Metabase.
• Seamlessly retries deadlocked transactions without throwing 500 errors to user.
• Randomized jitter prevents persistent retry collisions between concurrent worker processes.
• Emits warning metric alerting engineers to persistent contention hot spots.

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