Mastering NGINX : Personalize, customize and configure NGINX to meet the needs of your server , Second Edition

Aivaliotis

$29.99 ~~$43.99~~

5 (1 Ratings)

eBook Jul 2016 320 pages 2nd Edition

Aivaliotis

$29.99 ~~$43.99~~

5 (1 Ratings)

eBook Jul 2016 320 pages 2nd Edition

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Mastering NGINX

Chapter 2. A Configuration Guide

The NGINX configuration file follows a very logical format. Learning this format and how to use each section is one of the building blocks that will help you create a configuration file by hand. Constructing a configuration involves specifying global parameters as well as directives for each individual section. These directives and how they fit into the overall configuration file is the main subject of this chapter. The goal is to understand how to create the right configuration file to meet your needs.

This chapter will help you reach this goal by explaining the following topics:

The basic configuration format
NGINX global configuration parameters
Using the include files
The HTTP server section
The virtual server section
Locations—where, when, and how?
The mail server section
Full sample configuration

NGINX global configuration parameters

The global section is used to configure the parameters that affect the entire server and is an exception to the format shown in the preceding section. The global section may include configuration directives, such as user and worker_processes, as well as sections, such as events. There are no open and closing braces ({}) surrounding the global section.

The most important configuration directives in the global context are shown in the following table. These configuration directives will be the ones that you will be dealing with for the most part.

Global configuration directives	Explanation
`user`	The user and group under which the worker processes run is configured using this parameter. If the group is omitted, a group name equal to that of the user is used.
`worker_processes`	This directive shows the number of worker processes that will be started. These processes will handle all the connections made by the clients. Choosing the right number depends...

The HTTP server section

The HTTP server section, or the HTTP configuration context, is available unless you have built NGINX without the HTTP module (--without-http). This section controls all aspects of working with the HTTP module and will probably be the one that you will use the most.

The configuration directives found in this section deals with handling the HTTP connections. As such, there are quite a number of directives defined by this module. We will divide these directives up by type, to be able to talk about them more easily.

Client directives

This set of directives deals with the aspects of the client connection itself, as well as with different types of client.

The HTTP client directives	Explanation
`chunked_transfer_encoding`	This directive allows disabling the standard HTTP/1.1 chunked transfer encoding in responses to clients.
`client_body_buffer_size`	This directive is used to set a buffer size for the client request body that is larger than the default two memory pages...

The virtual server section

Any context beginning with the keyword server is considered a virtual server section. It describes a logical separation of a set of resources that will be delivered under a different server_name directive. These virtual servers respond to the HTTP requests, and are contained within the http section.

A virtual server is defined by a combination of the listen and server_name directives. The listen directive defines an IP address/port combination or path to a UNIX-domain socket:

listen address[:port];
listen port;
listen unix:path;

The listen directive uniquely identifies a socket binding under NGINX. There are a number of optional parameters that listen can take:

The listen parameters	Explanation	Comments
`default_server`	This parameter defines this address/port combination as being the default value for the requests bound here.
`setfib`	This parameter sets the corresponding FIB for the listening socket.	This parameter is only supported on FreeBSD and...

NGINX global configuration parameters

The most important configuration directives in the global context are shown in the following table. These configuration directives will be the ones that you will be dealing with for the most part.

Global configuration directives	Explanation
`user`	The user and group under which the worker processes run is configured using this parameter. If the group is omitted, a group name equal to that of the user is used.
`worker_processes`	This directive shows the number of worker processes that will be started. These processes will handle all the connections made by the clients. Choosing the right number depends...

Key benefits

Get tips, tricks, and master insight to help you configure NGINX for any server situation
Integrate NGINX into your applications architecture with is, using hands-on guidance and practical code samples that are free to use
Troubleshoot configuration problems before and as they arise, for a seamless NGINX server experience

Description

NGINX is a high-performance HTTP server and mail proxy designed to use very few system resources. But despite its power it is often a challenge to properly configure NGINX to meet your expectations. Mastering Nginx is the solution – an insider’s guide that will clarify the murky waters of NGINX’s configuration. Tune NGINX for various situations, improve your NGINX experience with some of the more obscure configuration directives, and discover how to design and personalize a configuration to match your needs. To begin with, quickly brush up on installing and setting up the NGINX server on the OS and its integration with third-party modules. From here, move on to explain NGINX's mail proxy module and its authentication, and reverse proxy to solve scaling issues. Then see how to integrate NGINX with your applications to perform tasks. The latter part of the book focuses on working through techniques to solve common web issues and the know-hows using NGINX modules. Finally, we will also explore different configurations that will help you troubleshoot NGINX server and assist with performance tuning.

Who is this book for?

This book is for system administrators and engineers who want to personalize NGINX, and design a robust configuration module to solve their hosting problems. Some knowledge of NGINX is a plus, but is not a prerequisite.

What you will learn

Compile the right third-party module to meet your needs
Write an authentication server to use with the mail proxy module
Create your own SSL certificates to encrypt connections
Use try_files to solve your file-existence check problems
Cache and compress responses to get speedier user interaction
Integrate popular PHP frameworks with the FastCGI module
Construct useful logging configurations

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Patrick Goetz Jul 24, 2019

I read a lot of technical books and articles, and most of them are terribly written. This is not one of those. I was pleasantly surprised at how readable this book is, with just the right amount of detail and clear explanations. My only objection, and it's a weak one, is to the use of Ruby as the glue language in some of the examples.Note: you won't see "Verified Purchase" associated with this review as I currently have a Packt subscription and read this book online.

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Mastering NGINX : Personalize, customize and configure NGINX to meet the needs of your server , Second Edition

What do you get with eBook?

Mastering NGINX

Chapter 2. A Configuration Guide

The basic configuration format

NGINX global configuration parameters

Using the include files

The HTTP server section

Client directives

The virtual server section

The basic configuration format

NGINX global configuration parameters

Using the include files

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