Nginx Configuration

2015-02-12

Part of configurations in nginx.conf

http {
	# Enable GZip compression
	gzip                on;
	gzip_http_version   1.1;
	gzip_min_length     1000;
	gzip_buffers        16 8k;
	gzip_disable        "MSIE [1-6] \.";
	gzip_types          text/html text/css text/xml application/x-javascript application/atom+xml text/plain
	gzip_vary           on;
	# Set proxy cache path
	proxy_cache_path /var/nginx/cache keys_zone=one:10m;
	upstream tomcat_cluster {
		ip_hash;
		server ws1:12130;
		server ws2:12130;
	}
	server {
		listen       80;
		server_name  localhost;
		
		location /portal/static/ {
			root D:/anyfish_web/nginx/;
			expires 30d;
			proxy_cache_valid 200 1d;
			proxy_cache_use_stale error timeout invalid_header updating http_500 http_502 http_504;
		}
		
		location /manager {
			allow 192.168.1.1/24;
			allow 127.0.0.1;
			deny all;
		}
		location / {
			proxy_pass http://tomcat_cluster;
			proxy_http_version 1.1;
			proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
			proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
			proxy_set_header Host $host:$server_port;
			proxy_set_header  X-Real-IP  $remote_addr;
        }
	}
}

Notes

GZip compression

gzip                on;
gzip_http_version   1.1;
gzip_min_length     1000;
gzip_buffers        16 8k;
gzip_disable        "MSIE [1-6] \.";
gzip_types          text/html text/css text/xml application/x-javascript application/atom+xml text/plain
gzip_vary           on;

Session persistence

Set ip_hash for session persistence.

Serving static content

location /portal/static/ {
	root D:/anyfish_web/nginx/;
	expires 30d;
	proxy_cache_valid 200 1d;
	proxy_cache_use_stale error timeout invalid_header updating http_500 http_502 http_504;
}

Change the root for URL starting with “/portal/static/“, letting it the serve the request with local static files.

Server cluster/rack

upstream tomcat_cluster {
	ip_hash;
	server ws1:12130;
	server ws2:12130;
}
server {
	location / {
		proxy_pass http://tomcat_cluster;
	}
}

upstream is used for proxying requests to other servers.

Conf for websocket:

1
2
3

proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";

The first line tells Nginx to use HTTP/1.1 when communicating to the Node backend, which is required for WebSockets. The next two tell Nginx to respond to the Upgrade request which is initiated over HTTP by the browser when it wants to use a WebSocket.

If the listening port is not 80:

1	proxy_set_header Host $host:$server_port;

Note the $server_port part shoud be present. Without it, the redirection will jump to $host:80, rather than the specified port!

Restrict access to the management pages by IP:

location /manager {
	allow 192.168.1.1/24;
	allow 127.0.0.1;
	deny all;
}

Virtual Host

Each server block represent the one virtual host with its own server_name. Each server blocks looks like:

server {
	listen       80;
	server_name  blog.server1.com;
	location / {
		proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8282;
	}
}

here each server blocks bind (listen) the port 80, and this server block is only resonds when the server_name value (here blog.server1.com) is matched the HTTP header Host field

`location` syntax

1	location [ = \| ~ \| ~* \| ^~ ] uri { ... }

Here,

"~" - case sensitive matching
"~*" - case insensitive matching
"=" - forces a literal match between the request URI and the location parameter.

Scripting

Check the great presentation here Introduction to nginx.conf scripting.