I already use nginx
as reverse proxy
to serve my node.js
webapps 3000<->80
for example. Actually, I serve my assets in the node app, using express.static
middleware.
I read and read again that nginx is extremely efficient to serve static files.
The question is, what is the best ? Serving assets as I already do or configuring nginx to serve the static files itself directly ?
Or it is almost the same ?
Configure NGINX and NGINX Plus to serve static content, with type-specific root directories, checks for file existence, and performance optimizations.
Dedicated reverse proxy tools, like Nginx and HAProxy, typically perform these operations faster than Node. js. Having a web server like Nginx read static content from disk is going to be faster than Node.
The best way is to use nginx server to serve you static file and let you node.js server handle the dynamic content.
It is usually the most optimized solution to reduce the amount of requests on your node.js server that is slower to server static files than nginx for example :
The configuration to achieve that is very easy if you already set a reverse proxy for you nodejs app.
nd nginx configuration could be
root /home/myapp;
# Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name _;
location /public/ {
alias /home/myapp/public/;
}
location / {
proxy_pass http://IPADRESSOFNODEJSSERVER:8080;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
# First attempt to serve request as file, then
# as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
#try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
Every request with /public/ at the first part of the url will be handled by nginx and every other request will be proxied to you nodejs app at your IPADRESSOFNODEJSSERVER:NODEJSPORT
usually the IPADRESSOFNODEJSSERVER
is the localhost
The doc section of express tell that http://expressjs.com/en/advanced/best-practice-performance.html#proxy
An even better option is to use a reverse proxy to serve static files; see Use a reverse proxy for more information.
Moreover nginx will let you easily define caching rules so for static assets that doesn't change it can speed up your app also with one line.
location /public/ {
expires 10d;
alias /home/myapp/public/;
}
You can find a lot of articles that compare the both methods on internet for example: http://blog.modulus.io/supercharge-your-nodejs-applications-with-nginx
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