Package:Nginx

What is nginx

nginx (pronounced "engin-x") is a Web and reverse proxy server for HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP protocols. It focuses on high concurrency, performance and low memory usage. Nginx quickly delivers static content with efficient use of system resources, also dynamic content is delivered on a network using FastCGI, SCGI handlers for scripts, uWSGI application servers or Phusion Passenger module (atm broken in funtoo), further more it can serve a very capable software load balancer. It uses an asynchronos event-driven approach to handle requests which provides more predictable performance under load, in contrast to the Apache HTTP server model, that uses a threaded or process-oriented approach to handling request. Nginx is licensed under a BSD-like license and it runs on Unix, Linux, BSD variants, Mac OS X, Solaris, AIX and Microsoft Windows.

Installation

USE flags

Before you can install nginx, there are the following USE-flags available, these can be set by /etc/portage/package.use or /etc/portage/package.use/nginx, depending on your setup of package.use.

aio - Enables file AIO support
debug - Enables extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output.
http - Enable http serving
http-cache - Enables caching for http files
ipv6 - Enables IPv6 support
libatomic - Use libatomic instead of buildtin atomic operations
pcre - Enables support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions
ssl - Adds support for Secure Socket Layer connections
vim-syntax - Pulls in related vim syntax scripts

Further more you can set the nginx modules you like to use in /etc/make.conf in the NGINX_MODULES_HTTP variable as NGINX_MODULES_HTTP="variables".

access
addition
auth_basic
autoindex
browser
cache_purge
charset
dav
degradation
empty_gif
ey_balancer
fastcgi
flv
geo
geoip
gzip
gzip_static
headers_more
image_filter
limit_req
limit_zone
map
memcached
perl
proxy
push
random_index
realip
referer
rewrite
scgi
secure_link
slowfs_cache
split_clients
ssi
stub_status
sub
upload
upstream_ip_hash
userid
uwsgi
xslt

and the following mail modules as NGINX_MODULES_MAIL in '/etc/make.conf':

imap
pop3
smtp

USE Expanded flags

nginx USE-flags go into /etc/portage/package.use or /etc/portage/package.use/nginx, while the HTTP and MAIL modules go as NGINX_MODULES_HTTP or NGINX_MODULES_MAIL are stored in /etc/make.conf. And as you wouldn't server only static html files, but most commonly also php files/scripts you should also install php with fpm enabled and xcache for caching the content, what makes your nginx setup way faster. For xcache you need to set PHP_TARGETS="php5-3" in '/etc/make.conf'.

Example:

echo "www-servers/nginx USE-FLAG-List" >> /etc/portage/package.use/nginx

Emerging nginx

Now you are ready to install nginx with php and xcache support:

emerge -avt nginx php xcache

so now just check your useflags and press enter to start emerge.

Configuring

All configuration is done in /etc/nginx with nginx.conf as the main configuration file and all virtual hosts in /etc/nginx/sites/available while you have to symlink /etc/nginx/sites-available/{VHOST} to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/{VHOST} to activate them. An example config for such a {VHOST} looks like that:

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

    access_log      /var/log/nginx/www.example.com.access_log main;
    error_log       /var/log/nginx/www.example.com.error_log info;

    root /var/www/www.example.com/htdocs;
}

The nginx.conf and sites-available/localhost file is well commented. Customize it to your needs. Make sure you set the listen option correctly. By default, the listen option is set to listen on the loopback interface. If you leave this unchanged other computers on the network will not be able to connect to the server.

Configuring PHP FPM

As we already installed php with fpm support above we just need to adjust the following settings in /etc/php/fpm-php5.3/php-fpm.conf. You should enable the following settings:

user = nginx
group = nginx
pm.start_servers = 20

The other options should all be very well documented, so make it fit your needs.

Configuring xcache

For setting xcache just edit /etc/php/fpm-php5.3/ext-active/xcache

zend_extension=/usr/lib64/php5.3/lib/extensions/no-debug-zts-20090626/          xcache.so                                                                   
  2 xcache.admin.enable_auth="On"
  3 xcache.admin.user="admin"
  4 xcache.admin.pass=""
  5 xcache.cacher="On"
  6 xcache.size="64M"
  7 xcache.count="9"
  8 xcache.slots="8k"
  9 xcache.ttl="0"
 10 xcache.gc_interval="0"
 11 xcache.var_size="8M"
 12 xcache.var_count="1"
 13 xcache.var_slots="8K"
 14 xcache.var_ttl="0"
 15 xcache.var_maxttl="0"
 16 xcache.var_gc_interval="600"
 17 xcache.readonly_protection="Off"
 18 xcache.mmap_path="/dev/zero"
 19 xcache.coverager="On"
 20 xcache.coveragedump_directory="/tmp/coverager"
 21 xcache.optimizer="On"

it might look like that for you, feel free to change the settings, and if you want to be able to log in into the admin interface set the xcache.admin.pass as a md5 encrypted password you can find it out with:

php -a
php> echo md5(PASSWORD);

and copy the admin interface to your vhost:

cp /usr/share/php/xcache/admin -a /var/www/{VHOST}/htdocs/xcache-admin

Starting the service

Now start the services:

/etc/init.d/php-fpm start
/etc/init.d/nginx start

and make them default:

rc-update add php-fpm default
rc-update add nginx default

External links