nginx

Note: This page contains some old notes. Check out the following links first:

We need to put nginx in front of Apache to avoid the situation where Apache is waiting for a slow client (e.g. mobile phone) to accept data. nginx can very quickly accept the full response from Apache and allow Apache to get on with another task.

Links

Deploy (continued)…

Install

apt-get install nginx

Configuration

Copy in the default configuration:

cd /etc/nginx/
rm -rf conf.d/ fastcgi_params koi-* nginx.conf sites-* win-utf
ln -s /home/web/sample_django_authentication/nginx/nginx.conf .

Note: The rm command removes all files in the folder apart from mime.types.

Update the server name in the nginx/nginx.conf file:

upstream testbox.com {

location / {
    proxy_pass http://testbox.com;

Update the Apache configuration so it listens only on the internal IP address:
```
Listen 10.119.55.96:8000
NameVirtualHost 10.119.55.96:8000
```

Update the Apache virtual host configuration (if relavant) e.g:

<VirtualHost 10.119.55.96:8000>
    ServerName testbox.com
    ServerAlias uk.testbox.com
    WSGIScriptAlias / /home/web/sample_django_authentication/apache/django.wsgi
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 10.119.55.96:8000>
    ServerName us.testbox.com
    WSGIScriptAlias / /home/web/sample_django_authentication/apache/django_us.wsgi
</VirtualHost>

Update the IP addresses in the nginx/nginx.conf file e.g:
```
upstream testbox.com {
    server 10.119.55.96:8000;
    }
```
Note: Check out this nginx.conf file if you are setting up sub-domains.

Admin Media

Find the folder where your Django admin media is stored. On my server it was here:
```
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/media/
```

Update the nginx.conf file for the location of your media files e.g:

# Serve media directly out of Nginx for performance
location /media {
    alias /home/web/media;
}

Create a symbolic link to your media folder:

cd /home/web/
ln -s /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/media/ .

Re-start nginx and check your admin media is available. You might like to double check the admin media path in your Django settings.py file:
```
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/media/'
```

Next…

doc:deploy (continued)…