2023

Learn about the updates, new features, and resolved bugs in F5 NGINX as a Service for Azure during the year 2023.

To see the latest changes, visit the Changelog page.

To see a list of currently active issues, visit the Known issues page.

December 19, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports new metrics

NGINXaaS now supports the following metrics derived from NGINX Plus statistics introduced in

API version 8:
- SSL statistics for each HTTP upstream and stream upstream
- SSL statistics for each HTTP server zone and stream server zone
- Extended statistics for SSL endpoint
API version 9:
- Per-worker connection statistics including accepted, dropped, active and idle connections, total and current requests
For a complete catalog of metrics, see the Metrics Catalog.

December 6, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports NGINX config dry-run

NGINXaaS now supports the NGINX config dry-run. See the Config Validation documentation for instructions on how to use it.

November 2, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports the Image-Filter dynamic module

NGINXaaS now supports the Image-Filter dynamic module. For a complete list of allowed directives, see the Configuration Directives List.
NGINXaaS for Azure is now generally available in more regions

NGINXaaS for Azure is now available in Japan East.

See the Supported Regions documentation for the full list of regions where NGINXaaS for Azure is available.

October 31, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports HTTP/3 and QUIC.

NGINXaaS can now serve client requests through HTTP/3 connections. NGINX only supports HTTP/3 on the client side and does not support HTTP/3 to upstreams. NGINXaaS utilizes the OpenSSL library; however, the OpenSSL compatibility layer it uses does not support early data.
```
http {
   server {
      # for better compatibility it's recommended
      # to use the same port for http/3 and https
      listen 443 quic reuseport;
      listen 443 ssl;
      ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/foo.pem;
      ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/foo.key;
      # ...
   }
}
```
To get started using HTTP/3 and NGINXaaS:
- Update the network security group associated with the NGINXaaS deployment’s subnet to allow inbound traffic for HTTP/3 UDP ports in the NGINX configuration. See our FAQ, for limits on how many unique ports may be specified in a configuration and a list of restricted ports.
- Additionally, add a Managed Identity to your deployment and create SSL/TLS Certificates. For more information on using NGINX with HTTP/3, see the HTTP/3 module.

October 25, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure is now generally available in more regions

NGINXaaS for Azure is now available in North Europe.

See the Supported Regions documentation for the full list of regions where NGINXaaS for Azure is available.

October 15, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure supports new dynamic modules

NGINXaaS now supports the OpenTelemetry and XSLT modules.

October 11, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports smaller deployments

You can now create or scale deployments to a capacity of 10 NCUs, ideal for small workloads.

October 9, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure maximum capacity increased

The maximum capacity of NGINXaaS for Azure has been increased from 160 NCUs to 500 NCUs under the Standard plan. Existing deployments can also benefit from this new limit if users choose to scale up.

To adjust capacity, refer to Adjusting Capacity.

To learn more about capacity restrictions, refer to Capacity Restrictions.

September 13, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports serving static content

An NGINXaaS deployment can now serve static content. See Hosting Static Content for details.

August 23, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports attaching a Public IP from a Public IP prefix

In the Microsoft Azure portal, you can create a static public IP address from an IP prefix. This release of NGINXaaS introduces support for attaching public IP addresses associated with a public IP prefix to your NGINXaaS deployments.

Aug 7, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now deploys with a default configuration

NGINXaaS new deployments will now include a default configuration, providing a smoother setup experience compared to the previous empty configuration.

To learn more about configuration, refer to Upload an NGINX Configuration.
- NGINXaaS for Azure now supports more directives
NGINXaaS now supports new directives. For a complete list of allowed directives, see the Configuration Directives List.

July 27, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports higher capacity

NGINXaaS for Azure allowed users to create deployments with a maximum capacity of 80 NCUs under the Standard plan. A recent change now allows users to deploy up to 160 NCUs. Existing NGINXaaS deployments should also scale up to 160 NCUs.

To adjust capacity, refer Adjusting Capacity.

To learn more about capacity restrictions, refer to Capacity Restrictions.

July 13, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure automatically rotates SSL/TLS certificates

NGINXaaS for Azure now automatically retrieves renewed certificates from Azure Key Vault and applies them to your NGINX deployment. To learn more about this new feature, refer to Certificate Rotation.

July 7, 2023

Improve compatibility with Azure Key Vault certificates generated through merging from an external provider (e.g. keyvault-acmebot)

Key Vault’s certificate merge command puts the server certificate as the last certificate in the generated PFX but NGINX requires that it be the first one in the generated PEM. NGINXaaS will dynamically reorder the certificates to be in chain order with the server certificate first.
Support NGINX log_not_found directive (docs)

June 29, 2023

NGINXaaS can now proxy and load balance UDP traffic.

To configure NGINX to handle UDP traffic, specify the stream directive in your NGINX configuration.
```
stream {
   server {
      listen 53 udp;
      # ...
   }
   # ...
}
```
To learn more about load balancing UDP traffic with NGINX, see TCP and UDP Load Balancing.

June 21, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure accepts configurations larger than 60kB

An NGINXaaS deployment can now accept configurations larger than 60kB.

June 6, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure supports new directives

NGINXaaS now allows the ssl_preread directive and most directives from the ngx_http_fastcgi_module module. For a complete list of allowed directives, see the Configuration Directives List.

May 31, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure is now generally available in more regions

NGINXaaS for Azure is now available in the following additional regions:
- West US 3
See the Supported Regions documentation for the full list of supported regions.

May 17, 2023

NGINXaaS can now proxy and load balance TCP traffic.

To configure NGINX to handle TCP traffic, specify the stream directive in your NGINX configuration.
```
stream {
   server {
      listen 12345;
      # ...
   }
   # ...
}
```
To learn more about load balancing TCP traffic with NGINX, see TCP and UDP Load Balancing.

May 1, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure supports passing traffic to gRPC servers.

NGINXaaS can now be configured as a gateway for gRPC services. Refer to NGINX’s gRPC module for more information.

April 26, 2023

NGINXaaS for Azure now supports HTTP/2.

NGINXaaS can now serve client requests through HTTP/2 connections. NGINX only supports HTTP/2 on the client side and does not support HTTP/2 to upstreams.
```
http {
   server {
      listen 443 ssl http2;

      ssl_certificate server.crt;
      ssl_certificate_key server.key;
      # ...
   }
}
```
To get started using HTTP/2 and NGINXaaS, add a Managed Identity to your deployment and create SSL/TLS Certificates. For more information on using NGINX with HTTP/2, see the HTTP/2 module.
NGINXaaS can now serve static files with the error_page directive.

April 17, 2023

NGINXaaS can now support NGINX configurations to secure HTTP traffic between NGINX and upstreams

NGINXaaS now accepts NGINX directives to secure traffic between NGINX and upstream using SSL/TLS certificates.

Refer to Securing Upstream Traffic for more details on how to configure NGINXaaS with these directives.

April 7, 2023

NGINX configurations may now listen on ports other than 80 and 443.

NGINXaaS now accepts requests on ports in addition to 80 and 443. Inbound ports are specified in the NGINX configuration using the listen directive.

NGINXaas can be configured to accept requests on up to 5 unique ports.
```
http {
   server {
      listen 8080;
      # ...
   }
}
```
Update the network security group’s inbound security rules associated with the NGINXaaS deployment’s subnet to allow inbound traffic for all listen ports in the NGINX configuration.

See our FAQ, for limits on how many unique ports may be specified in a configuration and a list of restricted ports.

March 16, 2023

Deployment configuration now succeeds after adding a managed identity.

After adding a managed identity to a deployment, the deployment transitions from an Accepted state to a Succeeded state only after the operation to add the managed identity succeeds. The user can then proceed to configure the deployment.

February 21, 2023

Directives auth_jwt_key_file and auth_jwt_require are now supported.

Refer to the auth_jwt_key_file and auth_jwt_require documentation for more information on using these directives.
- PKCS12 certificates may now be added to your NGINXaaS deployment.
Previously, NGINXaaS only accepted PEM formatted certificates. Now, both PEM and PKCS12 certificates are supported.
- State files may now be used with the keyval_zone directive.
For information on storing the state of a key-value database with a state file, see keyval_zone’s documentation.

January 11, 2023

NGINXaaS is generally available

We are pleased to announce the general availability of NGINX as a Service (NGINXaaS), a first-party-like experience as a service co-developed by Microsoft and NGINX and tightly integrated into the Azure ecosystem.

NGINXaaS, powered by NGINX Plus, is a fully managed service that removes the burden of deploying your own NGINX Plus cluster, installing libraries, upgrading, and managing it.

NGINXaaS simplifies the process of moving your existing NGINX configuration to the Azure cloud. Once your configurations are moved to Azure, securely manage SSL/TLS certificates and keys stored in Azure Key Vault and reference them within your NGINX configurations. You can watch your application’s traffic in real time with Azure monitoring and alerts, and scale your deployment to fit your needs, maximizing cost efficiency. You can create, update, and delete your NGINXaaS deployment using the Azure Resource Manager, the Azure SDK, CLI, and Terraform in addition to the Azure portal.

Our new “Standard” plan is ready for production workloads.

To learn more, refer to the following NGINXaaS documentation:

January 10, 2023

Special parameters in map and geo directives are now supported.
The match directive is now supported.

Last modified November 8, 2024