Nginx HTTP Server - Fourth Edition

Make the most of your infrastructure and serve pages faster than ever with Nginx.

Key Features

• Discover possible interactions between Nginx and Apache to get the best of both worlds
• Learn to exploit the features offered by Nginx for your web applications
• Get your hands on the most updated version of Nginx (1.13.2) to support all your web administration requirements

Book Description

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 book is a detailed guide to setting up Nginx in ways that correspond to actual production situations: as a standalone server, as a reverse proxy, interacting with applications via FastCGI, and more. In addition, this complete direct reference will be indispensable at all stages of the configuration and maintenance processes. This book mainly targets the most recent version of Nginx (1.13.2) and focuses on all the new additions and improvements, such as support for HTTP/2, improved dynamic modules, security enhancements, and support for multiple SSL certificates. 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 so that it does exactly what you need quickly and securely. For more experienced administrators, this book provides different approaches 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.

What you will learn

• Download and install Nginx on your system
• Prepare a basic configuration and test your initial setup
• Discover the core functionality of the HTTP module
• Make the most of first- and third-party Nginx modules
• Set up Nginx to work with PHP, Python, and other applications
• Learn how to set up Nginx to work with Apache
• Fully replace Apache with Nginx
• Optimize your architecture with threads or load balancing
• Identify errors in configuration and learn basic troubleshooting techniques
• Consult the exhaustive directive and module index for reference

Who This Book Is For

This book is a perfect match to web administrators who are interested in solutions to optimize their infrastructure. Whether you are looking into replacing your existing web server software or integrating a new tool to cooperate with applications that are already up and running, this book is your ideal resource.

Table of Contents

1. Downloading and Installing Nginx
2. Basic Nginx Configuration
3. HTTP Configuration
4. Module Configuration
5. PHP and Python with Nginx
6. Nginx as a reverse proxy
7. Apache and Nginx Together
8. From Apache to Nginx
9. Introduction to load balancing and optimization
10. Case studies
11. Troubleshooting

Martin Fjordvald is a 29-year-old Danish entrepreneur who started his company straight out of high school. Backed by a popular website, he became a jack of all trades having to deal with the business, programming, and marketing side of his business. The popularity of his website grew and so did the performance requirements of his code and servers.

He got involved with the community project to document Nginx early on and has written several blog posts and wiki articles detailing how Nginx works.

Clement Nedelcu was born in France and studied at UK, French, and Chinese universities. After teaching computer science, programming, and systems administration at several eastern Chinese universities, he worked as a technology consultant in France, specialized in the web and .NET software development as well as Linux server administration. Since 2005, he has also been administering a major network of websites in his spare time, which allowed him to discover Nginx. Clement now works as CTO. for a Hong-Kong-based company developing management software for schools.