How to increase timeout for NGINX?

Question

I am using Python, Flask, uWSGI and NGINX to host a web server. One of the functions involves generating a file for the user which can take up to a minute or two. On this action I keep getting a 504 timeout from NGINX. I tried to change some config variables in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf like keepalive_timeout but that didn't work.I also tried to add the following to /etc/nginx/conf.d/timeout.conf:

proxy_connect_timeout 600;
proxy_send_timeout 600;
proxy_read_timeout 600;
send_timeout 600;

and then I reloaded with systemctl reload nginx but it didn't change anything.

How do I increase the length of time before the request times out? Thanks for any help

Answer 1

Add the following directives at the end of the 'http' section to increase the timeout limit to 180 seconds (3 minutes):

http {
    <...>
    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/.conf;

    proxy_send_timeout 180s;
    proxy_read_timeout 180s;
    fastcgi_send_timeout 180s;
    fastcgi_read_timeout 180s;
}

Source : https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000170354-An-operation-or-a-script-that-takes-more-than-60-seconds-to-complete-fails-on-a-website-hosted-in-Plesk-nginx-504-Gateway-Time-out

Answer 2

I faced the same problem .. I've found a workaround telling nginx to accept a certain amount of data over the default one. Not trying to manage the timeout itself but changing the amount of data accepted in the transaction did the trick.

 server {

        client_max_body_size            5M; # or more ^^

}

but it's really not a secured option .. it works, but take care doing this.

moreover if you are using a reverse proxy WSGI gateway (Php for example) .. the underlayrer mechanism may take precedence over that