Linux Tutorials on the topic “nginx”

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What is Nginx?

Nginx is the second most popular open source (BSD License) web server software after Apache. Being more recent than the latter, it follows a different operation approach that is beneficial in specific cases such as the handling of concurrent requests. Besides its core functionality as a web server, it also boasts some mail proxy server features supporting TLS/SSL, STARTTLS, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP. It's HTTP server features include the serving of static and index files, accelerated reverse proxying with caching and automatic load balancing and fault tolerance, modular architecture with the ability to apply filters, name or IP-based virtual servers, keep-alive and pipeline connections support, uninterrupted client servicing during reconfiguration or upgrade, bandwidth throttling, different function execution based on the client address, validation of HTTP referrers, request limiting, MP4 and FLV streaming and syslog logging.

Nginx is a versatile and scalable software that can work on FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Mac OSX and Windows XP or Server 2003. The main difference with Apache is the fact that Nginx is relying in an asynchronous event-driven and non-blocking architecture. Nginx is preferred over Apache for its incomparable speed, as it works twice as fast when serving static content. It is also similarly extensiable as Nginx also supports add-on modules that must be compiled though. Nginx can successfully balance the load even when it is called to handle many thousands of traffic requests per second. This high performance capabilities combined with low RAM capacity requirements, and also the ease of use of its configuration tools has made Nginx the most popular web server (42%) in the top one thousand websites (based on traffic), and the second most widely used web server tool in the whole world of active internet websites (22%).

For those who need to reach utmost levels of performance taking full advantage of their systems, there is also the choice of Nginx Plus (one month free trial) which features more advanced tools for load balancing, content caching, media streaming and performance monitoring and management.

 

HowtoForge and Nginx

We at HowtoForge love Nginx as it is our web server of choice for our own website as well. That said, HowtoForge is filled with tutorials that show how to install Nginx in various popular Linux distributions, how to configure hosting control panels to manage it, how to compile extra modules to extend its functionality and how to integrate cloud services to it. You will also find helpful guides on how to install CS-Cart on nginx, how to secure yourself from SSL attacks, how to run redmine project management, how to improve its speed and how to install, configure and use various webmail applications on nginx.

Still, if you can't find what you're looking for, don't despair. Visit the helpful HowtoForge forums instead, and ask for the advice of the web administration experts that are hanging out there. There's even a dedicated section named “Server Operation” where people help each other on all things relating to Apache, Samba, MySQL, DNS, Postfix etc.