Book Image

NGINX Cookbook

By : Tim Butler
Book Image

NGINX Cookbook

By: Tim Butler

Overview of this book

NGINX Cookbook covers the basics of configuring NGINX as a web server for use with common web frameworks such as WordPress and Ruby on Rails, through to utilization as a reverse proxy. Designed as a go-to reference guide, this book will give you practical answers based on real-world deployments to get you up and running quickly. Recipes have also been provided for multiple SSL configurations, different logging scenarios, practical rewrites, and multiple load balancing scenarios. Advanced topics include covering bandwidth management, Docker container usage, performance tuning, OpenResty, and the NGINX Plus commercial features. By the time you've read this book, you will be able to adapt and use a wide variety of NGINX implementations to solve any problems you have.

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Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Preface
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Sections
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Free Chapter
1
Let's Get Started
Let's Get Started
Introduction
A quick installation guide
Configuring NGINX
Enabling modules
Deploying a basic site
Basic monitoring
Real-time statistics
2
Common PHP Scenarios
Common PHP Scenarios
Introduction
Configuring NGINX for WordPress
WordPress multisite with NGINX
Running Drupal using NGINX
Using NGINX with MediaWiki
Using Magento with NGINX
Configuring NGINX for Joomla
3
Common Frameworks
Common Frameworks
Introduction
Setting up Django with NGINX
Setting up NGINX with Express
Running Ruby on Rails with NGINX
Easy Flask with NGINX
Laravel via NGINX
Meteor applications with NGINX
High speed Beego with NGINX
4
All About SSLs
All About SSLs
Introduction
Basic SSL certificates
Enabling HTTP/2 on NGINX
Configuring HSTS in NGINX
Easy SSL certificates with Let's Encrypt
Making NGINX PCI DSS compliant
OCSP stapling with NGINX
Achieving full A+ Qualys rating
5
Logging
Logging
Introduction
Logging to syslog
Customizing web access logs
Virtual host log format
Application focused logging
Logging TLS mode and cipher information
Logging POST data
Conditional logging
Using the Elastic Stack
6
Rewrites
Rewrites
Introduction
Redirecting non-www to www-based sites
Redirecting to a new domain
Blocking malicious user agents
Redirecting all calls to HTTPS to secure your site
Redirecting pages and directories
Redirecting 404 errors through a search page
7
Reverse Proxy
Reverse Proxy
Introduction
Configuring NGINX as a simple reverse proxy
Content caching with NGINX
Monitoring cache status
Microcaching
Serving from cache when your backend is down
SSL termination proxy
Rate limiting
8
Load Balancing
Load Balancing
Introduction
Round robin load balancing
Least connected load balancing
Hash-based load balancing
Testing and debugging NGINX load balancing
TCP / application load balancing
NGINX as an SMTP load balancer
9
Advanced Features
Advanced Features
Introduction
Authentication with NGINX
WebDAV with NGINX
Bandwidth management with NGINX
Connection limiting with NGINX
Header modification with NGINX
10
Docker Containers
Docker Containers
Introduction
NGINX web server via Docker
NGINX reverse proxy via Docker
Docker Compose with NGINX
NGINX load balancing with Docker
11
Performance Tuning
Performance Tuning
Introduction
Gzipping content in NGINX
Enhancing NGINX with keep alive
Tuning worker processes and connections
Fine tuning basic Linux system limits
Integrating ngx_pagespeed
12
OpenResty
OpenResty
Introduction
Installing OpenResty
Getting started with OpenResty Lua
Lua microservices with OpenResty
Simple hit counter with a Redis backend
Powering API Gateways with OpenResty
13
NGINX Plus – The Commercial Offering
NGINX Plus – The Commercial Offering
Introduction
Installing NGINX Plus
Real-time server activity monitoring
Dynamic config reloading
Session persistence

SSL termination proxy

One of the first use cases that I tried NGINX out for was simply as an SSL termination proxy. If you have an application which can't directly produce HTTPS (encrypted) output, you can use NGINX as a proxy to do this. Content is served from your backend in plain text, then the connection between NGINX and the browser is encrypted. To help explain, here's a diagram covering the scenario:

The advantage is that you also get to make use of all the other NGINX feature sets too, especially when it comes to caching. In fact, if you've used the Cloudflare service to achieve a similar outcome, then you may be surprised to know that it's NGINX-based as well.

Getting ready

This recipe involves...

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