Preface

NGINX is a high-performance web server designed to use very few system resources. There are many how-to guides and example configurations floating around the Web. This guide will serve to clarify the murky waters of NGINX configuration. In doing so, you will learn how to tune NGINX for various situations, what some of the more obscure configuration options do, and how to design a decent configuration to match your needs.

You will no longer feel the need to copy-paste a configuration snippet because you will understand how to construct a configuration file to do exactly what you want it to do. This is a process and there will be bumps along the way, but with the tips explained in this book, you will feel comfortable writing an NGINX configuration file by hand. In case something doesn't work as expected, you will be able to debug the problem yourself, or at least be capable of asking for help without feeling like you haven't given it a try yourself.

This book is written in a modular fashion. It is laid out to help you get to the information you need as quickly as possible. Each chapter is pretty much a standalone piece. Feel free to jump in anywhere you feel you need to get more in-depth about a particular topic. If you feel you have missed something major, go back and read the earlier chapters. They are constructed in a way to help you grow your configuration piece by piece.