What this book covers

Chapter 1, Installing NGINX and Third-Party Modules, teaches you how to install NGINX on your operating system of choice and how to include third-party modules in your installation.

Chapter 2, A Configuration Guide, explains the NGINX configuration file format. You will learn what each of the different contexts is for, how to configure global parameters, and what a location is used for.

Chapter 3, Using the mail Module, explores NGINX's mail proxy module, detailing all aspects of its configuration. An example authentication service is included in the code for this chapter.

Chapter 4, NGINX as a Reverse Proxy, introduces the concept of a reverse proxy and describes how NGINX fills that role.

Chapter 5, Reverse Proxy Advanced Topics, delves deeper into using NGINX as a reverse proxy to solve scaling issues and performance problems.

Chapter 6, The NGINX HTTP Server, describes how to use the various modules included with NGINX to solve common webserving problems.

Chapter 7, NGINX for the Application Developer, shows how NGINX can be integrated with your application to deliver content to your users more quickly.

Chapter 8, Integrating Lua with NGINX, provides a brief look at how to extend NGINX functionality using the embedded Lua scripting language.

Chapter 9, Troubleshooting Techniques, investigates some common configuration problems, how to debug a problem once it arises, and makes some suggestions for performance tuning.

Appendix A, Directive Reference, provides a handy reference for the configuration directives used throughout the book, as well as a selection of others not previously covered.

Appendix B, The Rewrite Rule Guide, describes how to use the NGINX rewrite module and describes a few simple steps for converting Apache-style rewrite rules into ones NGINX can process.

Appendix C, The NGINX Community, introduces you to the online resources available to seek more information.

Appendix D, Persisting Solaris Network Tunings, details what is necessary to persist different network tuning changes under Solaris 10 and above.