Serving Static Content
This section describes how to configure NGINX and F5 NGINX Plus to serve static content, how to define which paths are searched to find requested files, how to set up index files, and how to tune NGINX and NGINX Plus, as well as the kernel, for optimal performance.
Root Directory and Index Files
The root directive specifies the root directory that will be used to search for a file. To obtain the path of a requested file, NGINX appends the request URI to the path specified by the root directive. The directive can be placed on any level within the http {}, server {}, or location {} contexts. In the example below, the root directive is defined for a virtual server. It applies to all location {} blocks where the root directive is not included to explicitly redefine the root:
server {
root /www/data;
location / {
}
location /images/ {
}
location ~ \.(mp3|mp4) {
root /www/media;
}
}
Here, NGINX searches for a URI that starts with /images/ in the /www/data/images/ directory in the file system. But if the URI ends with the .mp3 or .mp4 extension, NGINX instead searches for the file in the /www/media/ directory because it is defined in the matching location block.
If a request ends with a slash, NGINX treats it as a request for a directory and tries to find an index file in the directory. The index directive defines the index file’s name (the default value is index.html). To continue with the example, if the request URI is /images/some/path/, NGINX delivers the file /www/data/images/some/path/index.html if it exists. If it does not, NGINX returns HTTP code 404 (Not Found) by default. To configure NGINX to return an automatically generated directory listing instead, include the on parameter to the autoindex directive:
location /images/ {
autoindex on;
}
You can list more than one filename in the index directive. NGINX searches for files in the specified order and returns the first one it finds.
location / {
index index.$geo.html index.htm index.html;
}
The $geo variable used here is a custom variable set through the geo directive. The value of the variable depends on the client’s IP address.
To return the index file, NGINX checks for its existence and then makes an internal redirect to the URI obtained by appending the name of the index file to the base URI. The internal redirect results in a new search of a location and can end up in another location as in the following example:
location / {
root /data;
index index.html index.php;
}
location ~ \.php {
fastcgi_pass localhost:8000;
#...
}
Here, if the URI in a request is /path/, and /data/path/index.html does not exist but /data/path/index.php does, the internal redirect to /path/index.php is mapped to the second location. As a result, the request is proxied.
Trying Several Options
The try_files directive can be used to check whether the specified file or directory exists; NGINX makes an internal redirect if it does, or returns a specified status code if it doesn’t. For example, to check the existence of a file corresponding to the request URI, use the try_files directive and the $uri variable as follows:
server {
root /www/data;
location /images/ {
try_files $uri /images/default.gif;
}
}
The file is specified in the form of the URI, which is processed using the root or alias directives set in the context of the current location or virtual server. In this case, if the file corresponding to the original URI doesn’t exist, NGINX makes an internal redirect to the URI specified by the last parameter, returning /www/data/images/default.gif.
The last parameter can also be a status code (directly preceded by the equals sign) or the name of a location. In the following example, a 404 error is returned if none of the parameters to the try_files directive resolve to an existing file or directory.
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ $uri.html =404;
}
In the next example, if neither the original URI nor the URI with the appended trailing slash resolve into an existing file or directory, the request is redirected to the named location which passes it to a proxied server.
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ @backend;
}
location @backend {
proxy_pass http://backend.example.com;
}
For more information, watch the Content Caching webinar on‑demand to learn how to dramatically improve the performance of a website, and get a deep‑dive into NGINX’s caching capabilities.
Optimizing Performance for Serving Content
Loading speed is a crucial factor of serving any content. Making minor optimizations to your NGINX configuration may boost the productivity and help reach optimal performance.
Enabling sendfile
By default, NGINX handles file transmission itself and copies the file into the buffer before sending it. Enabling the sendfile directive eliminates the step of copying the data into the buffer and enables direct copying data from one file descriptor to another. Alternatively, to prevent one fast connection from entirely occupying the worker process, you can use the sendfile_max_chunk directive to limit the amount of data transferred in a single sendfile() call (in this example, to 1 MB):
location /mp3 {
sendfile on;
sendfile_max_chunk 1m;
#...
}
Enabling tcp_nopush
Use the tcp_nopush directive together with the sendfile on;directive. This enables NGINX to send HTTP response headers in one packet right after the chunk of data has been obtained by sendfile().
location /mp3 {
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
#...
}
Enabling tcp_nodelay
The tcp_nodelay directive allows override of Nagle’s algorithm, originally designed to solve problems with small packets in slow networks. The algorithm consolidates a number of small packets into a larger one and sends the packet with a 200 ms delay. Nowadays, when serving large static files, the data can be sent immediately regardless of the packet size. The delay also affects online applications (ssh, online games, online trading, and so on). By default, the tcp_nodelay directive is set to on which means that the Nagle’s algorithm is disabled. Use this directive only for keepalive connections:
location /mp3 {
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
#...
}
Optimizing the Backlog Queue
One of the important factors is how fast NGINX can handle incoming connections. The general rule is when a connection is established, it is put into the “listen” queue of a listen socket. Under normal load, either the queue is small or there is no queue at all. But under high load, the queue can grow dramatically, resulting in uneven performance, dropped connections, and increased latency.
Displaying the Listen Queue
To display the current listen queue, run this command:
netstat -Lan
The output might be like the following, which shows that in the listen queue on port 80 there are 10 unaccepted connections against the configured maximum of 128 queued connections. This situation is normal.
Current listen queue sizes (qlen/incqlen/maxqlen)
Listen Local Address
0/0/128 *.12345
10/0/128 *.80
0/0/128 *.8080
In contrast, in the following command the number of unaccepted connections (192) exceeds the limit of 128. This is quite common when a web site experiences heavy traffic. To achieve optimal performance, you need to increase the maximum number of connections that can be queued for acceptance by NGINX in both your operating system and the NGINX configuration.
Current listen queue sizes (qlen/incqlen/maxqlen)
Listen Local Address
0/0/128 *.12345
192/0/128 *.80
0/0/128 *.8080
Tuning the Operating System
Increase the value of the net.core.somaxconn kernel parameter from its default value (128) to a value high enough for a large burst of traffic. In this example, it’s increased to 4096.
-
For FreeBSD, run the command:
sudo sysctl kern.ipc.somaxconn=4096 -
For Linux:
-
Run the command:
sudo sysctl -w net.core.somaxconn=4096 -
Use a text editor to add the following line to
/etc/sysctl.conf:net.core.somaxconn = 4096
-
Tuning NGINX
If you set the somaxconn kernel parameter to a value greater than 512, change the backlog parameter to the NGINX listen directive to match:
server {
listen 80 backlog=4096;
# ...
}