@quad if(when) nginx becomes the most used what difference would it have?

I mean what differences would it really have?

@virus @quad People wouldn't have to learn apache config for any reason ever.

@virus Nginx is faster, more efficient resource usage and (most people at least) think the configuration is a lot easier.

@quad @virus but source code is obscur ;)

@lelimier @virus I have no idea what nginx's is. But I hear people complain about Apache's pretty often.

Haven't really looked at either myself though

@Pako Nginx is heaven man. I hated working with web servers when apache was a thing. Nginx is so much easier, faster and logical once you learn it.

Not to mention more performant in most tasks

@quad Couldn't you just use something like https://rocket.rs/ (no, I'm not a rust fanboy, just had that tab open right now) to host web stuff? Or is nginx on a lower level?

@Pako I'm not sure if you've heard but you're never supposed to take web apps like flask, sinatra, node, django, etc. and point them straight to the web. NEVER.

If you read the guides for any of them, they likely recommend putting it behind nginx and making it serve static files because it's both much safer and much faster

@quad @Pako That's really not true. It's plenty safe to put most Rust and Go servers (they're fast and evented) straight on the internet. Not so much the others (slowloris).

@chris @Pako Depends. The chances of something going wrong are still slim. But you're still considered a madman among any network admin or infosec guy if you trust a language-specific web server without it being behind a separate reputable web server

@quad @Pako I mean it's kind of a moot point anyway since doing SSL termination in the app is cancer.

@Pako @quad But for newer languages and newer app servers, the overhead of nginx is becoming quite heavy. Putting a crystal HTTP server behind NGINX decreases it's performance by quite a lot.

@chris @Pako It causes very little if you configure it properly. You'll need a couple more complex options to make that happen though.

If you also configure caching properly it'll typically perform better, even with compiled languages running behind, since nginx's logic for caching is honestly just pure insanity

@quad I feel betrayed now. Nobody ever told me anything like this lol.

I guess I'll learn nginx now.

@Pako
server {
listen 80;

server_name example.com;

location {
proxy_pass 127.0.0.1:<port>;
}
}

There. That's a functional config to proxy only requests to example.com to a running web application. Without https though.

@quad
Do you think that I can run something like this on my OPi0 24/7 without worrying about it dying?

@Pako What? nginx?

Of course, nginx uses like 4-8 MB of ram for most sites.

Heck even openings.moe that handles like 10TB/month only uses about 100MB per nginx install with in-memory cache key stores and all that fancy stuff.

@quad I'm more concerned about the CPU. It get's quite hot on the OPi0, even though I installed some small heatsink already, and I'm not sure how well it withstands a constant high temp.

@Pako nah, it'll be fine. i run nginx on my OPi Zero and nginx causes like 2-3% CPU usage tops. Granted that's not under heavy load

@quad I haven't actually used web apps made by others very often, but I've been developing one. Thanks for this post, might save my ass in the future being aware of this being a thing.

@neon It's not like it's the end of the world if you point a web app directly to the internet. It's just that every security guy on earth will cringe heavily at you

@quad Always nice to keep the cringe at bay. Though to be honest, it's impossible to keep security people cringe-free without being a security person full time yourself.

@neon Meh, it's mainly just because built-in web servers tend to have vulnerabilities more often than "proper" web servers.

And when they actually do have vulnerabilities it's way worse, because... well, the web server is IN your app. Aka they can mess with your DB and everything if the vulnerability is bad enough.

@quad Yeah, that's very sensible. Thing is, it hadn't even crossed my mind since I'm not very knowledgeable on anything server-side.

@neon It's basically just a case of "trust the guys who do this every single day for years on end instead of that little web server module you found online"

@quad @Pako No more of these stupid .htaccess :D

Nginx is freaking good!

@michael @quad of course it does : https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/10/admin_manual/installation/nginx_nextcloud_9x.html

@angristan @quad Yeah you can get it running but...

"This page covers example Nginx configurations to use with running an Nextcloud server. Note that Nginx is not officially supported." - https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/11/admin_manual/installation/nginx_examples.html

Guess I'm just a bit weird when it comes to my own personal files and the *ware I want to rely on to keep them safe.

@michael @quad well I don't know what's needed more to be "supported". Running Nextcloud with Nginx, everything is fine !

@michael @angristan Most PHP apps just don't "officially" support nginx because they're not willing to convert their .htaccess into a couple nginx rewrite rules

@quad @angristan I never liked the idea of all or nothing .htaccess files anyway as far as security goes.

@michael I don't know about nextcloud, but I've always been running owncloud behind nginx, probably for about 3 years

@BeansWater nginx is child's play compared to apache though.

server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com;

location / {
proxy_pass 127.0.0.1:<port>;
}
}

There. That will proxy the domain example.com to a web app running locally. You can even fit the config in a Tweet.

@quad listen doesn't always allow you to just specify the ip tho. But way simpler than apache anyway

@quad Listen doesn't always allow you to just specify the port, sometimes needing the ip too. But way simpler than apache anyway

@Sava I have never encountered an issue where I needed the IP, unless I was behind a very odd DMZ setup where ports were managed by a watchguard firewall

@quad This is like taking a big steaming dump on the floor in Web 6.0 church though.

@amrofnoc Probably. Maybe early 2018