NGINX

Initially, the product was developed only for Unix systems. The first releases were tested with FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, but later the developer added compatibility with Windows platform.

Nginx is the leader on the web server market in Russia. Many large companies use it on their portals: Rambler, Yandex, Mail.ru, Vkontakte and others.

Principle of work

. Unlike other products of this segment, Nginx uses a different principle of processing incoming data. The software splits each user request into several smaller ones, thus simplifying the processing of each one. In Nginx terminology they are called a working connection.

After processing, each connection is collected in one virtual container to be transformed into a single initial request and then sent to the user. A single connection can simultaneously process up to 1024 end-user requests.

To reduce the load on RAM, the web server uses a dedicated memory segment called a “pool” (pool). It is dynamic and expands as the request length increases.

Application

. A web server is used in the following situations:

1. Dedicated port or IP address. If the server has a large amount of static material (images, texts, etc.) or files to be uploaded by users, Nginx is used to allocate a separate IP address or port for these operations. Thus, the load on the server is distributed.
2. Proxy server. When a user loads a page of the site, which contains static content, Nginx first caches the data at itself, and then returns the result. At the next requests of this page the response is much faster.
3. Load balancing. When a page of the site is requested, the user gets a response in a synchronous sequence. Nginx uses asynchronous mode. All requests are processed at different stages. This approach increases the processing speed.
4. Mail server. Since the web server has built-in authentication mechanisms, it is often used to redirect to mail services after authorization by the client.

Nginx has built-in security mechanisms. Information is transmitted over an encrypted channel via SSL/TLS protocols.

The most common practice is when Nginx works in conjunction with Apache. If a request comes for static material, it is processed by Nginx. If the user needs dynamic content (video, graphics), Apache is connected here.

The Nginx web server is ideal for sites that contain mostly static content. It can also act as a redirect for mail services or as a proxy server. Simple and flexible configuration allows you to scale the product without much effort.