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.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

Introduction

Load balancing serves two main purposes—to provide further fault tolerance and to distribute the load. This is achieved by dividing incoming requests against one or more backend servers, so that you get the combined output of these multiple servers. As most load balancer configurations are generally configured as a reverse proxy (as detailed in the previous chapter), this makes NGINX a great choice.

By increasing your fault tolerance, you can ensure the reliability and uptime of your website or application. In the realms of Google or Facebook, where seconds of downtime can cause chaos, load balancers are a critical part of their business. Likewise, if you have occasional issues with your web server, or want to be able to conduct maintenance without bringing your site down, then a load balancer will greatly enhance your setup.

The distributed load side of a...