Among many network server software, there is a product originating from Russia. Due to its outstanding performance and extremely low resource consumption, it is used by many companies around the world, including China's top Internet companies.
Basic introduction to Nginx
Ngnix is an open source software. It was designed by a Russian engineer named Igor Sesoev specifically for the country's large portal website Rambler. It is mainly used as a web server, reverse proxy server, and mail proxy server. Compared with some large-scale similar software, Ngnix is famous for its exquisite structure and efficient code, which makes it take up very little system memory when it is started.
In addition to basic web service functions, Nginx can also handle email-related protocols, such as IMAP and POP3. It is released under the BSD license, which means that users can use and modify its source code relatively freely. Because of its excellent performance, this software quickly moved from Russia to the world and became an important part of the Internet infrastructure.
High performance and high concurrency features
The most well-known advantage of Nginx is its powerful concurrent connection processing capabilities. In the case of high-traffic access, many traditional servers will suffer a sharp decline in performance or collapse due to too many connections. However, Nginx can maintain stability because it has a unique event-driven architecture. This design allows it to withstand a large number of user requests with limited resources.
When it is deployed on the front end, large Chinese websites such as Sina, NetEase and Tencent are used to carry the daily visits of hundreds of millions of netizens and effectively cope with sudden traffic peaks. This is because it has demonstrated its core advantages in actual stress testing environments. Nginx's concurrent processing capabilities are often better than other mainstream web servers in the same period.
Advantages under Linux system
In the environment surrounding the Linux operating system, the stability and performance of Nginx are maximized. Many system administrators regard it as a powerful alternative or supplement to Apache HTTP Server on the Linux platform. It runs extremely stably and can continue to work for a long time without frequent restarts, which is critical for websites that provide uninterrupted service.
Due to its open source nature, technical personnel can modify Nginx's source code and extend its functions according to the special needs of their own business. This flexibility is not available in many closed-source commercial software. Enterprises can achieve complex functions such as load balancing and security filtering by self-development or adding third-party modules.
Starting and running the software
In Windows systems, you can start the nginx.exe program by double-clicking it. Generally, you will see a command line window pop up quickly. There is also a more common method, which is to open a command line terminal, go to the Nginx installation directory, and then directly enter the "nginx" command to start the service. In this way, the terminal window may be locked.
Use the "start nginx" command to start the service in the background to avoid the command line being locked. After successful startup, you can usually see two main Nginx processes in the system's process manager. One main process is responsible for management, and one or more worker processes are responsible for handling actual network requests. The number of processes can be set in the configuration file.
Default configuration and static content serving
After Nginx is installed, it comes with a basic configuration file, which is generally called nginx.conf. By analyzing this file, we can know its initial working status. For example, the default configuration usually starts a worker process, sets the maximum number of concurrent connections for a single process to 1024, and listens to the computer's local port 80.
When a user accesses the server, it will define the file directory location to search for by default. This location is usually the "html" folder in the installation directory. In this folder, a default index.html page is stored. When the user accesses the server IP, this page is what he sees. Administrators can easily replace these contents with their own HTML files or images to test whether the service is functioning properly.
Log management and function variables
Nginx will automatically record all access and various error messages during operation. These logs are crucial for operation and maintenance work and troubleshooting. Access logs record the specific details of each client's request, including the time, IP address, and resource requested. The error log is specifically used to record warnings and error messages that occur during the running process to help administrators quickly locate problems.
Nginx provides ample built-in variables and instructions, which improves the flexibility of configuration. For example, by using the "if" instruction and matching specific variables, complex access control logic can be achieved. These variables can capture request header information, client IP address and other data, making rewrite rules and proxy settings more sophisticated and powerful.
Have you ever chosen server software other than Nginx for your project? What were the key factors that made you make such a choice?
