Servers and Infrastructure Guides

Plain guides to Nginx, proxies and reverse proxies, HTTPS, load balancing, caching, CDNs and common server errors.

To protect your site against attacks, see the Website Security guides.

12 guides

What is Nginx and what is it used for?The roles of Nginx, its event-driven architecture, how it differs from Apache, configuration blocks and basic commands. About 10 min read
What is a proxy server?Forward proxy versus reverse proxy, typical uses, a comparison with VPNs and what to know about privacy. About 11 min read
What is a reverse proxy?What a reverse proxy does, typical architectures, the real visitor IP and headers, how it relates to a CDN, and a short Nginx example. About 11 min read
How to set up Nginx as a reverse proxyStep-by-step setup: server block, proxy_pass, forwarded headers, WebSocket, timeouts and real client IP. About 10 min read
HTTPS in Nginx: setting up an SSL certificateGetting a certificate, redirecting to HTTPS, HSTS, SSL termination and automatic renewal in Nginx. About 10 min read
What is load balancing?How requests are spread across several servers, the Nginx upstream settings, health checks and the session problem. About 12 min read
Caching and compression in NginxHow to set up caching and compression in Nginx correctly with static file headers, gzip and proxy_cache. About 12 min read
Nginx security settings: rate limiting, headers, access restrictionsRate limiting, security headers, hidden-file and admin-path restrictions, and request limits in Nginx. About 11 min read
502, 504 and other Nginx errors: causes and fixesWhat 502, 504, 413, 499, 403 and 404 mean, their likely causes, diagnosis from the logs and the fix. About 13 min read
What is a CDN (content delivery network)?What a CDN is, how it is put in place, and what to watch for with real IPs, caching and origin server security. About 11 min read
Migrating from Apache and .htaccess to NginxSide-by-side examples, an equivalents table and a test list for moving .htaccess rules into the Nginx configuration. About 11 min read
Nginx and PHP-FPM: how PHP sites run on Nginxfastcgi_pass, SCRIPT_FILENAME, try_files, the pool concept, socket permissions and the 502 error. About 14 min read

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