📄️ Introduction
Welcome to the Nginx handbook.
📄️ Basics
NGINX (pronounced “engine-x”) is a high-performance web server, reverse proxy, load balancer, and HTTP cache.
📄️ NGINX vs Apache
Both NGINX and Apache HTTP Server are the most popular web servers used to deliver websites and web applications to users.
📄️ Installation
Installation on Ubuntu
📄️ Configuration
NGINX uses a centralized, hierarchical configuration system.
📄️ Contexts
NGINX configuration is hierarchical.
📄️ Directives vs Blocks
NGINX configuration is built from directives. Some directives are simple (single-line), while others are block directives that contain nested directives.
📄️ Include Directive
The include directive tells NGINX to read and insert configuration files from another location as if their contents were written directly at that place.
🗃️ Reverse Proxy
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📄️ Load Balancing
When NGINX acts as a reverse proxy, it can distribute incoming requests across multiple backend servers to achieve:
📄️ Health Checks
Health checks allow NGINX to determine whether a backend server is healthy or unhealthy and decide whether to send traffic to it.
📄️ Static Files
Static files are files that are sent as-is to the client, without backend processing.
📄️ MIME Types
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) types tell the client (browser) what kind of content is being sent, so the client knows how to handle or render it.
📄️ Default Server Block
The default server block is the server context NGINX uses when an incoming HTTP request does not match any server_name on the requested IP:port.
📄️ Index Files
An index file is the default file that NGINX serves when a client requests a directory URI (i.e., a URL ending with /) without specifying a filename.
📄️ Auto Index
The autoindex directive enables NGINX to automatically generate a directory listing when a client requests a directory URL that does not contain an index file.
📄️ SSL_TLS setup
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and its successor TLS (Transport Layer Security) are cryptographic protocols that:
📄️ HTTP to HTTPS
HTTP → HTTPS redirection forces all users who access your site over unencrypted HTTP (port 80) to be automatically redirected to encrypted HTTPS (port 443).
📄️ Rate Limiting
Rate limiting restricts how many requests a client can make to your server within a defined time window.
📄️ Connection Limiting
Connection limiting restricts the number of simultaneous (concurrent) connections a client can open to your NGINX server.
📄️ Restricting Access
Restricting access means controlling who can access your application, what they can access, and from where.
📄️ Basic Authentication
HTTP Basic Authentication is a simple authentication mechanism where:
🗃️ Logging
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📄️ Name Based Virtual Hosting
Name-based virtual hosting allows multiple websites (domains) to be hosted on a single IP address.
📄️ IP Based Virtual Hosting
IP-based virtual hosting means hosting multiple websites on the same server, where each website has its own IP address.
📄️ Default Server
The default server is the fallback virtual host that NGINX uses when an incoming request does not match any other server block for the given IP address and port.
📄️ Prefix Match
Prefix matching means NGINX matches a request based on the beginning (prefix) of the URI.
📄️ Exact Match
Exact matching tells NGINX:
📄️ Regex
Regex location matching lets NGINX choose a location block using a regular expression applied to the request URI.
📄️ Priority Rules
When a request comes in, NGINX may have multiple location blocks that could match.
📄️ Rewrite & Redirect
What Are Rewrite & Redirect Rules?