Nginx HTTP configuration

Nginx HTTP configuration is composed by three types of sections

http:  it defines the gobal http related settings. It is the container of ‘server’ module.

Server: it defines a specific site (virtual host) on the nginx server. It can be only defined within the http section

Location: it defines a specific location of the site (vhost). It can be defined in server or other location sections.

Here are the most common configuration for nginx:

Server and socket:

-listen:  (server): specify the IP and ports of the host

-server_name (server): specify the http request’s HTTP host field the server section will server for.

-server_name_hash_max_size (http): the internal hash table size maximane size.

-server_names_hash_bucket_size (http): the internal hash entry bucket maximane length.

-tcp_nodelay (http,server,location):  no delay option for tcp, only when keep-alive is on

-tcp_nopush (http,server,location):  tcp_nopush or tcp_cork option for tcp, only when sendfile is on

-sendfile (http,server,location): if using sendfile syscall to handle the file transfer.

- keepailve-requests(http,server,location):  the maxamine requests for each keep-alive connections

- keepalive_timeout(http,server,location):  the keep_alive timeout value.

Document and location:

-root (http,server,location): the document root location

- alias (location): provides an alias for some specific location.but does not change the root.

-error_page (http,server,location) set the http error code and it’s correspondent error page.

-if_modified_since (http,server,location): define if the modified time setting in http request should be exactly matched or not.

-index (http,server,location): set the index page , the server will search the order list.

-try_files (location):  try to match / set the search pattern for the files if not existing, the pass to the last specified location to handle it.

MINE type:

Usually we only need to include the mime.types; file

-types：overwrites MINE type in HTTP header’s content-type

Other advanced options can be see other oline tools.