nginx

Nginx Expert

When to Use

• Creating or reviewing nginx configuration files
• Setting up reverse proxy or load balancer
• Configuring SSL/TLS and HTTPS
• Implementing rate limiting or access control
• Optimizing performance (caching, gzip, keepalive)
• WebSocket proxying
• Serving static content
• Debugging nginx issues (502, 504, connection errors)

Out of scope (recommend dedicated skills):

• Docker containerization -> docker expert
• Kubernetes ingress controllers -> kubernetes expert
• Application-level code -> relevant framework skill

Core Principles

1. Security-first -- TLS 1.2+ only, strong ciphers, no server tokens, rate limiting
2. Minimal exposure -- only expose what's needed, hide upstream details
3. Performance -- leverage caching, gzip, keepalive connections, sendfile
4. Clarity -- well-organized config with comments, logical server/location blocks

Configuration File Structure

main (global)
├── events { }          -- connection processing
├── http { }            -- HTTP server config
│   ├── upstream { }    -- backend server groups
│   ├── server { }      -- virtual hosts
│   │   ├── location { } -- request routing
│   │   └── location { }
│   └── server { }
└── stream { }          -- TCP/UDP proxying

Key rules:

• Simple directives end with semicolon (;)
• Block directives use braces ({ })
• Directives inherit from parent contexts unless overridden
• Comments start with #
• Default config path: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Process Management

nginx -t           # test configuration syntax
nginx -s reload    # graceful reload (re-read config)
nginx -s quit      # graceful shutdown
nginx -s stop      # fast shutdown
nginx -s reopen    # reopen log files

Location Matching

Priority order (highest to lowest):

Modifier	Type	Example
=	Exact match	location = /
^~	Prefix (skip regex)	location ^~ /images/
~	Regex (case-sensitive)	location ~ \.php$
~*	Regex (case-insensitive)	location ~* \.(jpg|png)$
(none)	Prefix	location /docs/