NGINX HTTP Server E-Book

Gabriel Ouiran

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 310

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Explore the capabilities of NGINX, a robust HTTP server designed for handling high-traffic websites, with network scalability as its primary objective. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced administrator, this NGINX book will guide you through the complete process of setting up this lightweight HTTP server, from quick and basic configurations to more detailed configurations tailored to your needs. Highlighting the latest version 1.25.2, featuring new features such as HTTP/3 and QUIC, this edition keeps you up to date with cutting-edge developments.
This book is packed with a multitude of real-world examples, which will help you secure your infrastructure with automatic TLS certificates, expertly place NGINX in front of your existing applications, and do much more. From orchestration and Docker to bandwidth management, OpenResty, and NGINX Plus commercial features, you’ll get to grips with enhancing and optimizing your infrastructure or designing brand-new architecture. Moreover, this updated edition will show you how NGINX excels in cloud environments with guides on integrating NGINX with cloud services for deploying scalable architectures efficiently and securely.
By the end of this book, you’ll be able to adapt and use a wide variety of NGINX implementations to tackle diverse challenges with confidence.

Leseprobe

NGINX HTTP Server

Harness the power of NGINX with a series of detailed tutorials and real-life examples

Gabriel Ouiran

Clement Nedelcu

Martin Bjerretoft Fjordvald

NGINX HTTP Server

Copyright © 2024 Packt Publishing

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Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

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First published: July 2010

Second edition: July 2013

Third edition: November 2015

Fourth edition: February 2018

Fifth edition: June 2024

Production reference: 1080524

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-83546-987-3

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To the incredible circle of friends and mentors who’ve guided and helped me, to the community that has always inspired me, and to all those who hold a special place in my heart, filling my life with joy and purpose – you truly are my pillars of strength.

– Gabriel Ouiran

Contributors

About the authors

Gabriel Ouiran is a systems administrator at Eduka Software, Singapore, specializing in IT infrastructure with a strong focus on AI and cloud technologies. Gabriel is also a passionate tech enthusiast and a free and open source software contributor. He has over 10 years of experience working in IT for different companies. Gabriel now applies this expertise to enhance educational software solutions.

I’m grateful to Clément for the chance to write this fifth edition. Special thanks to Remy, Jean-Vincent, and Inès for their invaluable support and assistance in writing this book.

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 Singapore-based company developing management software for schools.

Martin Bjerretoft Fjordvald is a 35-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.

About the reviewers

Rémy Beaufils has worked in the field of IT security for the last 10 years. He has performed security audit and consulting for both the private and public sector, from small local companies to international conglomerates. His current job was as security engineer for a French Insurtech start-up named Luko.

Rémy is also a contributor to several open source projects linked to automation and social media, and he is an active participant in several security-oriented communities.

I believe that no matter how small the participation, all of us can build a better digital future in the open source space, far from the conflicts of interest moving the private sector.

I’d also like to thank Ronnie, my cat, who helped me review and test all chapters of this book.

Jean-Vincent HAY has been a security auditor and DevSecOps consultant for more than eight years and currently works for Squad in France. His main areas of interest are application security, especially on mobile applications and their backends, and he mainly works for the industrial and banking sectors.

I hope this book helps people do a better job at giving me less work in raising awareness about OWASP and the whole security auditing industry. I’d like to thank Squad for giving me so many occasions to learn about good and bad NGINX configuration, and a community of pirate octopuses for their heads-up. Of course, this would have been much more difficult without the love of my life.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Begin with NGINX

1

Downloading and Installing NGINX

Installing NGINX via package managers

NGINX-provided packages

Compiling NGINX from source

Installing GNU Compiler Collection

The PCRE library

The zlib library

OpenSSL

Downloading and compiling the NGINX source code

Websites and resources

Version branches

Features

Downloading and extracting

Exploring the options for configuring the compilation

The easy way

Path options

Build configuration issues

Compiling and installing

Controlling the NGINX service

Daemons and services

Users and groups

NGINX command-line switches

Starting and stopping the daemon

Testing the configuration

Other switches

Adding NGINX as a system service

systemd unit file

Handling system errors

A quick overview of the possibilities offered by NGINX Plus

Summary

2

Basic NGINX Configuration

Delving into the configuration file syntax

Configuration directives

Organization and inclusions

Directive blocks

Advanced language rules

Looking at the base module directives

What are base modules?

NGINX process architecture

Core module directives

The events module

Configuration module

Necessary adjustments

Testing your server

Creating a test server

Upgrading NGINX gracefully

Summary

Part 2: Dive into NGINX

3

Exploring the HTTP Configuration

An introduction to the HTTP core module and its three new blocks

Exploring the HTTP core module directives

Socket and host configuration

Paths and documents

Client requests

MIME types

Limits and restrictions

File processing and caching

Other directives

Exploring the directives of HTTP/2

http2_chunk_size

http2_body_preread_size

http2_idle_timeout

http2_max_concurrent_streams

http2_max_field_size

http2_max_header_size

http2_max_requests

http2_recv_buffer_size

http2_recv_timeout

Module variables

Exploring the variables introduced by the HTTP core module

Request headers

Response headers

NGINX-generated headers

Understanding and exploring the location block

Location modifier

Search order and priority

Summary

4

Exploring Module Configuration in NGINX

Exploring the Rewrite module

Reminder of regular expressions

Internal requests

Conditional structure

Directives

Common rewrite rules

Looking at some additional modules

Website access and logging

Limits and restrictions

Content and encoding

About your visitors

SSL and security

Other miscellaneous and optional modules

Summary

5

PHP and Python with NGINX

Introduction to FastCGI technologies

Understanding the CGI mechanism

CGI

FastCGI

uWSGI and SCGI

Main directives

FastCGI caching and buffering

PHP with NGINX

Architecture

PHP-FPM

Setting up PHP and PHP-FPM

NGINX configuration

Python and NGINX

Django

Setting up Python and Django

NGINX configuration

Summary

6

NGINX as a Reverse Proxy

Exploring the reverse proxy mechanism

Exploring the NGINX proxy module

Main directives

Caching, buffering, and temporary files

Limits, timeouts, and errors

Other directives

Variables

Looking at NGINX and microservices

Summary

Part 3: NGINX in Action

7

Introduction to Load Balancing and Optimization

Introducing load balancing

Understanding the concept of load balancing

Session affinity

The upstream module

Request distribution mechanisms

Using NGINX as a TCP/UDP load balancer

The stream module

An example of MySQL load balancing

Exploring thread pools and I/O mechanisms

Relieving worker processes

AIO, Sendfile, and DirectIO

Summary

8

NGINX within a Cloud Infrastructure

Understanding cloud infrastructure

The traditional approach

The cloud approach

Using Docker

Installing Docker

Your first Docker container

Simplifying with Docker Compose

Setting up NGINX inside Docker

Integrating PHP with NGINX using Docker Compose

Setting up NGINX inside Docker to proxy host applications

Summary

9

Fully Deploy, Manage, and Auto-Update NGINX with Ansible

Understanding configuration management

Running your first Ansible playbook

Setting up NGINX using Ansible

Setting up automatic updates using Ansible

Summary

10

Case Studies

Exploring SSL Certificates and HTTPS by default

Certificate Management with acme.sh

acme.sh and the DNS API

Issuing a signed certificate

Centralizing SSL Configuration with NGINX

Implementing HTTP/2 with SSL

Deploying a WordPress site

Preparing your server and obtaining WordPress

NGINX configuration

WordPress configuration

Deploying Nextcloud

Getting Nextcloud

Summary

11

Troubleshooting

Looking at some general tips on NGINX troubleshooting

Checking access permissions

Testing your configuration

Have you reloaded the service?

Checking logs

Installing a log parser

Troubleshooting install issues

Looking at the 403 forbidden custom error page

Exploring 400 Bad Request

Looking at truncated or invalid FastCGI responses

Exploring location block priorities

Looking at if block issues

Inefficient statements

Unexpected behavior

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

NGINX, known for its lightweight design, is a powerhouse HTTP server designed for handling high-traffic websites, with network scalability as its primary objective. In our increasingly connected world, optimizing your web apps has become more critical than ever. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced administrator, this NGINX book will guide you through the complete process of setting up this lightweight HTTP server, from a quick and basic configuration to a more detailed configuration tailored to your needs. This new edition focuses on the latest version 1.25.2, which introduces new features such as HTTP/3 and QUIC.

Packed with a multitude of real-world examples, this book will help you to secure your infrastructure with automatic TLS certificates, expertly place NGINX in front of your existing applications, and do much more. You’ll also cover orchestration, Docker, bandwidth management, OpenResty, and NGINX Plus commercial features to enhance and optimize your infrastructure or design a brand-new architecture.

By the end of this book, you’ll be able to adapt and use a wide variety of NGINX implementations to solve any problems you have.

Who this book is for

This edition of our NGINX book is meticulously designed for beginner DevOps engineers, system administrators, and web developers who want to improve their understanding of web server management, especially in the areas of performance optimization and cloud infrastructure. Whether you’re just beginning your journey into web technologies or looking to consolidate your base, this book offers practical insights and hands-on experience with NGINX, the heart of modern web applications.

The primary personas who will find this content invaluable are beginner DevOps engineers, system administrators, and curious web developers. DevOps newcomers will learn NGINX’s essentials, from setup to cloud optimization, while system administrators will gain strategies for effective deployment and troubleshooting, and developers will discover how to enhance their projects with improved performance, security, and scalability.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Downloading and Installing NGINX, is an introduction to acquiring and configuring NGINX on your system. It covers the essentials, from the initial download to ensuring NGINX persists across reboots by installing it as a system service. Key areas include preparing your system, configuring NGINX, managing dynamically loaded modules, and integrating NGINX as a reliable system service. The chapter closes with an overview of NGINX Plus.

Chapter 2, Basic NGINX Configuration, explores the essentials of NGINX configuration, from file syntax and structure to testing changes. Highlights include configuration syntax, base directives, and server testing strategies.

Chapter 3, Exploring the HTTP Configuration, focuses on the intricacies of the NGINX HTTP module, providing a comprehensive guide to directives and an in-depth exploration of the Location block. From the fundamentals of the HTTP Core module, through in-depth discussions of directives and variables, to mastery of the Location block, this chapter provides readers with the know-how to efficiently configure virtual hosts and understand the principles underlying NGINX’s configuration structure.

Chapter 4, Exploring Module Configuration in NGINX, delivers an in-depth guide to NGINX’s Rewrite module and a comprehensive overview of the open source edition’s first-party modules. This chapter focuses on mastering “pretty URLs” with the Rewrite module, and exploring NGINX’s vast selection of add-on modules.

Chapter 5, PHP and Python with NGINX, emphasizes configuring NGINX to work with dynamic PHP and Python scripts via FastCGI. Starting with a deep dive into the principles of FastCGI, it then walks through the process of configuring NGINX for efficient communication with PHP and Python applications, offering insights into using the FastCGI module for optimal server-side script integration.

Chapter 6, NGINX as a Reverse Proxy, discusses NGINX’s reverse proxy capabilities and dives into the details of the NGINX proxy module. Readers will learn how to navigate the proxy module, appreciate NGINX’s strengths in managing modern web applications, and set up a reverse proxy configuration efficiently.

Chapter 7, Introduction to Load Balancing and Optimization, focuses on deploying NGINX to manage high-traffic websites on multiple servers. This chapter looks at NGINX’s advanced load-balancing capabilities and the latest I/O optimization features, including the use of thread pools. It offers a comprehensive guide to setting up a balanced server architecture and improving I/O performance, crucial for the scalability and efficiency of large-scale web applications.

Chapter 8, NGINX within a Cloud Infrastructure, highlights the integration of NGINX and Docker in cloud setups, from Docker fundamentals to deploying NGINX with Docker Compose. Learn to optimize containerized applications and caching with NGINX as a central gateway.

Chapter 9, Fully Deploy, Manage, and Auto-Update NGINX with Ansible, explores efficient NGINX deployment across multiple servers using Ansible. Covering mass deployment strategies, the basics of configuration management, and crafting Ansible roles for NGINX, this chapter will help with large-scale server management. It concludes with automating NGINX updates for effortless maintenance to deliver a robust and secure NGINX fleet.

Chapter 10, Case Studies, dives into the deployment of secure websites and applications with detailed case studies. Master SSL with acme.sh, adopt HTTP/2, configure WordPress and integrate NextCloud with Docker. Gain skills in deploying secure sites, configuring NGINX for various scenarios and using NGINX to enhance Docker environments.

Chapter 11, Troubleshooting, navigates through NGINX debugging with essential tips and tools for identifying issues. Covering general troubleshooting advice, log parsing, and common challenges such as install errors and 403 Forbidden pages, this chapter lays out a clear path to resolving configuration mistakes and understanding block priorities. Learn to adjust configurations for effective debugging and recognize frequent NGINX configuration errors.

To get the most out of this book

Operating system requirements

Software/hardware covered in the book

Linux (preferably Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, or RHEL)

NGINX

Ansible

Docker

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book’s GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/NGINX-HTTP-Server_Fifth-edition. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “Mount the downloaded WebStorm-10*.dmg disk image file as another disk in your system.”

A block of code is set as follows:

[nginx] name=nginx repo baseurl=http://nginx.org/packages/OS/OSRELEASE/$basearch/ gpgcheck=0 enabled=1

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

apt update apt install nginx

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “Select System info from the Administration panel.”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

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Part 1:Begin with NGINX

In this part, you will be introduced to the foundations of NGINX. This section provides the basis for understanding NGINX and its capabilities by exploring the installation and the baseline configuration of the web server. You will get practical information on the efficient configuration for NGINX, which will prepare you for the advanced configuration and optimization techniques covered in the next parts.

This part includes the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Downloading and Installing NGINXChapter 2, Basic NGINX Configuration

1

Downloading and Installing NGINX

NGINX (pronounced engine-x) has become the leader among web servers ever since it came out 20 years ago. Back in 2004, its main goal was to outperform Apache, and today, NGINX is outperforming every web server when it comes to high-traffic websites or security. Throughout this book, we will discover and learn how to use NGINX, step by step. We will cover many subjects to have a configuration tailored to everyone’s needs.

In this first chapter, we will proceed with the necessary steps toward establishing a functional setup of NGINX. This moment is crucial for the smooth functioning of your web server—there are some required libraries and tools for installing the web server, some parameters that you will have to decide upon when compiling the binaries, and there may also be some configuration changes to perform on your system.

By the end of this chapter, you will have installed NGINX either through a public repository or by compiling a custom version embedding all the extra modules you might need.

This chapter covers the following:

Installing NGINX via package managersDownloading and installing the prerequisites for compiling NGINX binariesDownloading a suitable version of the NGINX source codeConfiguring NGINX compile-time optionsControlling the application with a unit service fileConfiguring the system to launch NGINX automatically on startupA quick overview of the possibilities offered by NGINX Plus

…

Installing NGINX via package managers

The quickest, and easiest, way to install NGINX is to simply use your OS-provided version. Most of the time, these are kept fairly updated; however, for some Linux distributions focusing on stability, you may only have older versions of NGINX available. Sometimes, your Linux distribution may provide multiple versions of NGINX with different compile flags.

In general, before embarking on a more complex journey, we should check whether we can use the easy solution. For Red Hat Linux-based operating systems, we need to enable the EPEL repo first and then do the same:

yum install epel-release yum search nginx yum info PACKAGE_NAME yum install PACKAGE_NAME

For a Debian-based operating system, we first find the NGINX compiles available and then get the information for the one we want:

apt-cache search nginx apt-cache show PACKAGE_NAME apt install PACKAGE_NAME

If the version provided is current enough, then you’re ready to configure NGINX in the next chapter.

If the version provided by your distribution is too old, then NGINX provides packages for RHEL/CentOS distributions as well as Debian/Ubuntu distributions. We encourage you to visit the official NGINX website to make sure the version given by your distribution isn’t outdated.

NGINX-provided packages

To set up a yum repository for RHEL/CentOS, create a file named /etc/yum.repos.d/nginx.repo with the following contents:

[nginx] name=nginx repo baseurl=http://nginx.org/packages/OS/OSRELEASE/$basearch/ gpgcheck=0 enabled=1

Replace OS with rhel or centos, depending on the distribution used, and OSRELEASE with 8 or 9, for versions 8.x or 9.x, respectively. Afterward, NGINX can now be installed with yum:

yum install nginx

For Debian-based distributions, we need to first use their signing key to authenticate the package signatures. Download the following file first from http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key.

Then, run the following command:

sudo apt-key add nginx_signing.key

With the key added, we can now add the NGINX repository to sources.list found in /etc/apt/sources.list. For Debian, we add the following lines:

deb http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ codename nginx deb-src http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ codename nginx

Here, codename is either trixie or bookworm, depending on your version of Debian. For Ubuntu, we use the following dependencies:

deb http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ codename nginx deb-src http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ codename nginx

Here, codename is either noble, focal, or bionic, depending on your version of Ubuntu. Finally, we can install NGINX with the apt command:

apt update apt install nginx

Now that we have learned how to install NGINX from repositories, let’s have a look at how we can compile it from the source and benefit from having custom modules that are not provided with the default NGINX.

Compiling NGINX from source

There are situations where compiling NGINX from source is preferable. It gives us the most flexibility regarding modules, so we can customize better for our intended usage. For example, we could compile a very lean version for embedded hardware.

Additionally, we can make sure we use the latest version of NGINX and have all new features available to us. Keep in mind, though, that when installing software from source, you are responsible for keeping it updated. NGINX, just like every other piece of software, sometimes finds security issues that it needs to address. An OS package is much easier to update than a source installation but, so long as you’re aware of the need to maintain it yourself, there is absolutely no problem.

Depending on the optional modules that you select at compile time, you will perhaps need different prerequisites. We will guide you through the process of installing the most common ones, such as GCC, PCRE, zlib, and OpenSSL.

Installing GNU Compiler Collection

NGINX is a program written in C, so you will first need to install a compiler tool such as the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) on your system. GCC may already be present on your system, but if that is not the case, you will have to install it before going any further.

Note

GCC is a collection of free open source compilers for various languages – C, C++, Java, Ada, Fortran, and so on. It is the most commonly used compiler suite in the Linux world, and Windows versions are also available. A vast number of processors are supported, such as x86, AMD64, PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, and more.

Follow these steps to install GCC:

First, make sure it isn’t already installed on your system:[user@server ~]$ gcc

If you get the following output, it means that GCC is correctly installed on your system and you can skip to the next section:

gcc: no input files

If you receive the following message, you will have to proceed with the installation of the compiler:

~bash: gcc: command not foundGCC can be installed using the default repositories of your package manager. Depending on your distribution, the package manager will be vary-yum for a Red Hat Linux-based distribution, apt for Debian and Ubuntu, yast for SUSE Linux, and so on. Here is the typical way to proceed with the download and installation of the GCC package:[root@server ~]# yum groupinstall "Development Tools"If you use apt, execute the following command:[root@server ~]# apt-get install build-essentials

If you use another package manager with a different syntax, you will probably find the documentation with the man utility. Either way, your package manager should be able to download and install GCC correctly, after having resolved dependencies automatically.

Note that the apt and yum commands will not only install GCC; they will also proceed to download and install all common requirements for building applications from source, such as code headers and other compilation tools.

The PCRE library

The Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) library is required for compiling NGINX. The rewrite and HTTP core modules of NGINX use PCRE for the syntax of their regular expressions, as we will discover in later chapters. You will need to install two packages—pcre and pcre-devel. The first one provides the compiled version of the library, whereas the second one provides development headers and sources for compiling projects, which are required in our case.

Here are some example commands that you can run in order to install both packages.

Using yum, execute the following command:

[root@server ~]# yum install pcre pcre-devel

Or you can install all PCRE-related packages using the following command:

[root@server ~]# yum install pcre*

If you use apt, use the following command:

[root@server ~]# apt install libpcre3 libpcre3-dev

If these packages are already installed on your system, you will receive a message saying something like nothing to do; in other words, the package manager did not install or update any component:

Figure 1.1: APT showing the PCRE library is already installed.

The preceding output signifies that both the components, libpcre3 and libpcre3-dev, are already present inthe system.

The zlib library

The zlib library provides developers with compression algorithms. It is required for the use of .gzip compression in various modules of NGINX. Again, you can use your package manager to install this component as it is part of the default repositories. Similar to PCRE, you will need the zlib library and its associated zlib-dev component as well.

Using yum, execute the following command:

[root@server ~]# yum install zlib zlib-devel

Using apt, execute the following command:

[root@server ~]# apt install zlib1g zlib1g-dev

These packages install quickly and have no known dependency issues.

OpenSSL

The OpenSSL project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and open source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) v2/v3 and Transport Layer Security (TLS) v1 protocols as well as a full-strength general-purpose cryptography library. The project is managed by a worldwide community of volunteers who use the internet to communicate, plan, and develop the OpenSSL toolkit and its related documentation. For more information, visit https://www.openssl.org.

The OpenSSL library will be used by NGINX to serve secure web pages. We thus need to install the library and its development package. The process remains the same here – you install openssland openssl-devel:

[root@server ~]# yum install openssl openssl-devel

Using apt, execute the following command:

[root@server ~]# apt install openssl libssl-dev

Important note

Please be aware of the laws and regulations in your own country. Some countries do not allow the use of strong cryptography. The author, publisher, and developers of the OpenSSL and NGINX projects will not be held liable for any violations or law infringements on your part.

Now that you have installed all of the prerequisites, you are ready to download and compile the NGINX source code.

Downloading and compiling the NGINX source code

This approach to the download process will lead us to discover the various resources at the disposal of server administrators, websites, communities, and wikis all relating to NGINX. We will also quickly discuss the different version branches available to you, and eventually, select the most appropriate one for your setup.

Websites and resources

Although NGINX is a relatively new and growing project, there are already a good number of resources available on the World Wide Web (WWW) and an active community of administrators and developers.

The official website, which is https://nginx.org/, currently serves as an official documentation reference and provides links from which to download the latest version of the application source code and binaries. A wiki is also available at https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/ and offers a wide selection of additional resources such as installation guides for various operating systems, tutorials related to the different modules of NGINX, and more.

There are several ways to get help if you should need it. If you have a specific question, try posting on the NGINX forum at https://forum.nginx.org/. An active community of users will answer your questions in no time. Additionally, the NGINX mailing list, which is relayed on the NGINX forum, will also prove to be an excellent resource for any question you may have. If you need direct assistance, there is always a group of regulars helping each other out on the IRC channel, #Nginx, on irc.libera.chat.

Another interesting source of information is the blogosphere. A simple query on your favorite search engine should return a good number of blog articles documenting NGINX, its configuration, and modules:

Figure 1.2: Websites and blogs documenting Nginx

It’s now time to head over to the official website and get started with downloading the source code for compiling and installing NGINX. Before you do so, let us have a quick summary of the available versions and the features that come with them.

Version branches

Igor Sysoev, a talented Russian developer and server administrator, initiated this open source project back in 2002. Between the first release in 2004 and the current version, the market share of NGINX has been growing steadily. It now serves nearly 26.23% of websites on the internet, according to an April 2023 survey on https://www.netcraft.com/. The features are numerous and render the application both powerful and flexible at the same time.

There are currently three version branches of the project:

Stable version: This version is usually recommended, as it is approved by both developers and users, but is usually a little behind the mainline version.Mainline version: This is the latest version available for download and comes with the newest developments and bug fixes. It was formerly known as the development version. Although it is generally solid enough to be installed on production servers, there is a small chance that you will run into the occasional bug. As such, if you favor stability over novelty, going for the stable version is recommended.Legacy version: If, for some reason, you are interested in looking at the older versions, you will find several of them.

A recurrent question regarding mainline versions is “Are they stable enough to be used on production servers?” Cliff Wells, the original founder and maintainer of the NGINX wiki at https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/, believes so – “I generally use and recommend the latest development version. It’s only bit me once!” Early adopters rarely report critical problems. It is up to you to select the version you will be using on your server, knowing that the instructions given in this book should be valid regardless of the release as the NGINX developers have decided to maintain overall backward compatibility in new versions. You can find more information on version changes, new additions, and bug fixes on the dedicated change log page on the official website.

Features

As of the mainline version 1.25.2, NGINX offers an impressive variety of features, which, contrary to what the title of this book indicates, are not all related to serving HTTP content. Here is a list of the main features of the web branch, quoted from the official website (https://nginx.org/):

Serving static and index files, auto indexing; open file descriptor cache; accelerated reverse proxying with caching; load balancing and fault tolerance.Accelerated support with caching of FastCGI, uWSGI, SCGI, and memcached servers; load balancing and fault tolerance; modular architecture. Filters include gzipping, byte ranges, chunked responses, XSLT, SSI, and image transformation filter. Multiple SSI inclusions within a single page can be processed in parallel if they are handled by proxies or FastCGI/uWSGI/SCGI servers.SSL and TLS SNI support.

NGINX can also be used as a mail proxy server. Although this aspect will not be closely documented in the book, the following will provide you with some insight into it:

User redirection to IMAP/POP3 backend using an external HTTP authentication serverUser authentication using an external HTTP authentication server and connection redirection to an internal SMTP backendAuthentication methods:POP3: USER/PASS, APOP, AUTH LOGIN/PLAIN/CRAM-MD5IMAP: LOGIN, AUTH LOGIN/PLAIN/CRAM-MD5SMTP: AUTH LOGIN/PLAIN/CRAM-MD5SSL supportSTARTTLS and STLS support

NGINX is compatible with most computer architectures and operating systems—Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and Solaris. The application runs fine on 32- and 64-bit architectures.

Downloading and extracting

Once you have made your choice as to which version you will be using, head over to https://nginx.org/ and find the URL of the file you wish to download. Position yourself in your home directory, which will contain the source code to be compiled, and download the file using wget:

[user@server ~]$ mkdir src && cd src [user@server src]$ wget https://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.25.2.tar.gz

We will be using version 1.25.2, the latest stable version as of September 2023. Once downloaded, extract the archive contents in the current folder:

[user@server src]$ tar zxf nginx-1.25.2.tar.gz

You have successfully downloaded and extracted NGINX. Now, the next step will be to configure the compilation process in order to obtain a binary thatperfectly fits your operating system.

Exploring the options for configuring the compilation

There are usually three steps when building an application from source—configuration, compilation, and installation. The configuration step allows you to select a number of options that will not be editable after the program is built, as it has a direct impact on the project binaries. Consequently, it is a very important stage that you need to follow carefully if you want to avoid surprises later, such as the lack of a specific module or files being located in a random folder.

The process consists of appending certain switches to the configure script that comes with the source code. We will discover the three types of switches that you can activate, but let us first study the easiest way to proceed.

The easy way

If, for some reason, you do not want to bother with the configuration step, such as for testing purposes or simply because you will be recompiling the application in the future, you may simply use the configure command with no switches. Execute the following three commands to build and install a working version of NGINX:

[user@server nginx-1.25.2]# ./configure

Running this command should initiate a long procedure of verifications to ensure that your system contains all of the necessary components. If the configuration process fails, please make sure you check the prerequisites section again, as it is the most common cause of errors. For information about why the command failed, you may also refer to the objs/autoconf.err file, which provides a more detailed report. The make command will compile the application:

[user@server nginx-1.25.2]# make

This step should not cause any errors as long as the configuration went fine:

[root@server nginx-1.25.2]# make install

This last step will copy the compiled files as well as other resources to the installation directory, by default /usr/local/nginx. You may need to be logged in as root to perform this operation depending on permissions granted to the /usr/local directory.

Again, if you build the application without configuring it, you take the risk of missing out on a lot of features, such as the optional modules and others that we are about to discover.

Path options

When running the configure command, you are offered the chance to enable some switches that let you specify the directory or file paths for a variety of elements. Please note that the options offered by the configuration switches may change according to the version you downloaded. The following options listed are valid with the stable version, as of release 1.25.2. If you use another version, run the ./configure --help command to list the available switches for your setup.

Using a switch typically consists of appending some text to the command line. Here is an example using the --conf-path switch:

[root@server nginx]# ./configure --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf