NGINX Tutorial for Beginners

NGINX Tutorial Step-by-Step Guide:

1. Understanding NGINX:

   • NGINX is an open-source web server software used for reverse proxy, load balancing, and caching.
   • It serves web content to browsers and acts as a reverse proxy.

2. Inspecting Network Requests:

   • Use browser developer tools to inspect network requests made when accessing a website.
   • Identify the server (in this case, NGINX) responsible for serving web content.

3. NGINX as a Reverse Proxy:

   • NGINX acts as a middleman between the client browser and the actual server (e.g., Airbnb server).
   • It helps in load balancing by distributing client requests to multiple servers.

4. Setting Up NGINX:

   • Install NGINX on your system.
   • Start NGINX to serve web content.

5. Configuring NGINX:

   • Modify the NGINX configuration file (nginx.conf) to define server settings and paths for serving content.
   • Use directives like listen and root to specify server settings and content paths.

6. Serving Static Content:

   • Configure NGINX to serve static HTML files by defining root directories and file paths.
   • Ensure correct MIME types are set to display content correctly.

7. Using Location Blocks:

   • Utilize location blocks in NGINX to specify different endpoints and serve specific content based on URLs.
   • Use regular expressions and alias directives for more advanced routing.

8. Load Balancing with NGINX:

   • Set up NGINX as a load balancer to distribute client requests among multiple backend servers.
   • Configure NGINX to use a round-robin algorithm for even distribution.

9. Running Multiple Servers:

   • Use Docker to run multiple instances of backend servers.
   • Map container ports to host machine ports for communication.

10. Implementing Load Balancing:

    • Define backend server URLs in NGINX configuration to balance load across multiple servers.
    • Test load balancing by accessing the NGINX server and observing requests being distributed.

By following these steps, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of NGINX, configure it for various tasks like serving content, routing requests, and load balancing, and effectively manage web server operations.