Reduce Apache's Load With Nginx On RHEL 5.2

This how-to describes how to install and configure Nginx to accelerate an Apache server based on RHEL 5.2.

1. Update your installed packages

yum install update

2. Install new packages

yum install -y httpd-devel

wget http://rpmfind.net/linux/EPEL/5Server/i386/nginx-0.6.31-3.el5.i386.rpm

rpm nginx-0.6.31-3.el5.i386.rpm

3. Edit /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Setting up nginx as a reverse proxy:

nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Change worker_processes 1; To worker_processes 2;

Replace

http {
  include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
  default_type application/octet-stream;
  log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] $request '
  '"$status" $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
  access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
  sendfile on;
  #tcp_nopush on;
  #keepalive_timeout 0;
  keepalive_timeout 65;
  #gzip on;

# Load config files from the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory
 include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
#
# The default server
#
server {
listen 80;
#charset koi8-r;
#access_log logs/host.access.log main;
location / {
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
index index.html index.htm;
}

with

http {
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] $request '
'"$status" $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
'"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
gzip on;
# Load config files from the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
#
# The default server
#
server {
listen 80;
server_name YOURSERVERNAME;
#charset koi8-r;
#access_log logs/host.access.log main;
#Main location
location / {
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_connect_timeout 90;
proxy_send_timeout 90;
proxy_read_timeout 90;
client_max_body_size 10m;
client_body_buffer_size 128k;
proxy_buffer_size 4k;
proxy_buffers 4 32k;
proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k;
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
index index.html index.htm index.php;
}

This function allows nginx to work with these file types:

Change

#location ~ /\.ht {
#deny all;

to

location ~* ^.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|pdf|ppt|txt|tar|wav|bmp|rtf|js)$ {root /var/www;}

4. Check nginx conf

nginx -t

The result must be like this:

2008/07/17 16:09:46 [info] 17197#0: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
2008/07/17 16:09:46 [info] 17197#0: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf was tested successfully

5. Installing rpaf-2.0 module

This module gives active Nginx IPs to Apache.

cd /usr/local/src

wget http://stderr.net/apache/rpaf/download/mod_rpaf-0.6.tar.gz

tar xzf mod_rpaf-0.6.tar.gz

cd mod_rpaf-0.6

Compiling rpaf module:

nano /usr/local/src/mod_rpaf-0.6/makefile

Change APXS=$(shell which apxs) to APXS=/usr/sbin/apxs.

Compile ways:

I)

make rpaf-2.0 && make install-2.0

II)

apxs -i -c -n mod_rpaf-2.0.so mod_rpaf-2.0.c

6. Edit httpd.conf

nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Add

...
LoadModule rpaf_module modules/mod_rpaf-2.0.so
....

#Mod_rpaf settings
RPAFenable On
RPAFproxy_ips 127.0.0.1 REALIP1 REALIP2
RPAFsethostname On

Change Listen 80 to Listen 8080, because nginx will use port 80.

7. Restart Apache & start Nginx

service httpd restart

service nginx start

8. View results

Apache test page by Nginx: