Nginx Cheatsheet

Nginx is open-source software for web serving, reverse proxying, caching, load balancing, media streaming, and more. In this post, I will mention few Nginx configurations which we use frequently.

Index

• Listen To Port
• Access Logging
• Domain Name
• Static Assets
• Redirect
• Reverse Proxy
• Load Balancing
• SSL

---

Listen To Port

server {
  # Standard HTTP Protocol
  listen 80;

  # Standard HTTPS Protocol
  listen 443 ssl;

  # For http2
  listen 443 ssl http2;

  # Listen on 80 using IPv6
  listen [::]:80;

  # Listen only on using IPv6
  listen [::]:80 ipv6only=on;
}

Access Logging

server {
  # Relative or full path to log file
  access_log /path/to/file.log;

  # Turn 'on' or 'off'
  access_log on;
}

Domain Name

server {
  # Listen to yourdomain.com
  server_name yourdomain.com;

  # Listen to multiple domains
  server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;

  # Listen to all domains
  server_name *.yourdomain.com;

  # Listen to all top-level domains
  server_name yourdomain.*;

  # Listen to unspecified Hostnames (Listens to IP address itself)
  server_name "";

}

Static Assets

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name yourdomain.com;

  location / {
          root /path/to/website;
  } 
}

Redirect

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name www.yourdomain.com;
  return 301 http://yourdomain.com$request_uri;
}

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name www.yourdomain.com;

  location /redirect-url {
     return 301 http://otherdomain.com;
  }
}

Reverse Proxy

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name yourdomain.com;

  location / {
     proxy_pass http://0.0.0.0:3000;
     # where 0.0.0.0:3000 is your application server (Ex: node.js) bound on 0.0.0.0 listening on port 3000
  }

}

Load Balancing

upstream node_js {
  server 0.0.0.0:3000;
  server 0.0.0.0:4000;
  server 123.131.121.122;
}

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name yourdomain.com;

  location / {
     proxy_pass http://node_js;
  }
}

SSL

server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  server_name yourdomain.com;

  ssl on;

  ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /path/to/privatekey.pem;

  ssl_stapling on;
  ssl_stapling_verify on;
  ssl_trusted_certificate /path/to/fullchain.pem;

  ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
  ssl_session_timeout 1h;
  ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
  add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=15768000;
}

# Permanent Redirect for HTTP to HTTPS
server {
  listen 80;
  server_name yourdomain.com;
  return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

---

Thank you for reading

If you like what you read and want to see more, please support me with coffee or a book ;)