Book Image

Nginx HTTP Server - Second Edition

By : Clement Nedelcu
Book Image

Nginx HTTP Server - Second Edition

By: Clement Nedelcu

Overview of this book

<p>Nginx is a lightweight HTTP server designed for high-traffic websites, with network scalability as the primary objective. With the advent of high speed Internet access, short loading times and fast transfer rates have become a necessity. This free, open source solution will either come as a full replacement of other software such as Apache, or stand in front of your existing infrastructure to improve its overall speed.</p> <p>"Nginx HTTP Server - Second Edition" provides a detailed guide to setting up Nginx in different ways that correspond to actual production situations: as a standalone server, as a reverse proxy, interacting with applications via FastCGI and more. In addition, the complete directive reference will be your best friend at all stages of the configuration and maintenance processes.</p> <p>This book is the perfect companion for both Nginx beginners and experienced administrators. For beginners, it will take you through the complete process of setting up this lightweight HTTP server on your system and configuring its various modules to get it to do exactly what you need, in a fast and secure way. For more experienced administrators, this book provides different angles of approach that can help you make the most of your current infrastructure. Nginx can be employed in many situations, whether you are looking to construct an entirely new web-serving architecture or simply want to integrate an efficient tool to optimize your site loading speeds.</p> <p>This book takes you through the setup and configuration of Nginx by detailing every step of the way, from downloading to configuring your server in a selection of common architectures.</p>
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Nginx HTTP Server Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Directive Index
Index

Chapter 6. Apache and Nginx Together

If you are reading this book, chances are you already have some good knowledge of the Apache web server with its 51 percent market share (as of April 2013 according to a Netcraft Survey). In fact, a lot of the administrators interested in Nginx are people who have encountered issues with the former regarding slowdowns, being complex to configure, unresponsive at times, and has a variety of other problems. Consequently, the first idea that comes to mind is to replace Apache with an alternative web server such as Nginx. However, there is a possibility that is not often considered as it sounds a little far-fetched at first — running both Nginx and Apache at the same time. When you look into it, this solution offers a great deal of advantages, especially for administrators looking for a quick and efficient solution to the aforementioned issues.

This chapter covers:

  • An introduction to the reverse proxy mechanism

  • The advantages and disadvantages of the architecture...