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Nginx

Nginx is a lightweight, easy to configure host software and we recommend it for use together with nodejs and python.

The Positive

  1. fast
  2. stable
  3. feature-rich
  4. not as bloated as apache

The Negative

  1. configuration

Our approach at Lossless

Nginx is good and fast at what it does: handling traffic. The configuration should not be done manually though. This is why we wrote coretraffic, a tool that handles configuration for you and even supports reverse config handling for docker clusters :) and automatic LetsEncrypt certificate retrieval.

Watch and Learn

Handy stuff

nginx config for static content:

Here is a bestpractice standard config file that will serve the site/ directory of your project:

server {

    listen *:80;
    server_name   ~^(www\.)?(?<domain>.+)$;
    rewrite        ^ https://$domain$request_uri permanent;
}

server {
    listen *:443 ssl;
    server_name   ~^(www\.)?(?<domain>.+)$;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/servezone.access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/servezone.error.log;
    root /srv/www/$domain/site/;
    index index.html index.htm index.php;
    location  / {
    }
    location = /favicon.ico {
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
    }
    location = /robots.txt {
        allow all;
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
    }
    ssl_certificate /srv/ssl/newssl/server.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /srv/ssl/newssl/server.key;
    location ~ /\.git {
        deny all;
    }
}

nginx with Docker

Read on here to get a neat nginx setup for docker containers.

fix permissions of serving directory

this assumes that your nginx runs as user www-data 

sudo chown -cR www-data:www-data /servingDir/