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nginx-eXist-ubuntu

Nginx as a reverse proxy and cache server for the eXist-db Application Server

eXist-db provides a XML document-oriented schema-less data-store and an xQuery engine to access and serve this data.

ubuntu with it's server and deskstop vesions, pretty much the best OS enviroment for developing web apps.

Nginx The Web Server, Exist The XML Application Server

The projects purpose is to help users set up Nginx as as a reverse proxy for eXist-db application server for both local development and remote production.

Included are the files and scripts I have used to set up such local development and remote production server enviroments which are capable of serving multiple web-site domains without altering the Nginx conf every time you add a new site. The production server makes use Nginx proxy cache capabilities.

Assumptions: You have eXist-db installation.

Conventions: Your website domain names become the app collection names for eXist-db applications. e.g. For the domain 'markup.co.nz' when starting a New Application in eXide the 'target collection' will be 'markup.co.nz'.

Site layout follows these directory conventions.

db/apps/{domain} db/apps/{domain}/resources
db/apps/{domain}/resources/styles db/apps/{domain}/resources/scripts
db/apps/{domain}/resources/images db/apps/{domain}/resources/images/svg

If you have a different directory conventions you will have to alter 'server-dev-locations.conf' and 'server-production-locations.conf'.

To use

  1. as sudo git clone git://github.com/grantmacken/nginx-eXist-ubuntu.git
  2. install Nginx both on your desktop and server 3. upstart make Nginx run as a upstart script on your desktop and server 4. config install the appropriate nginx for each enviroment
  3. production.sh on your server 2. development.sh on your desktop

Install Nginx

Nginx can be easily be compiled and installed from source. In the 'install' folder is the bash script 'nginx-install.sh' which will do the install. Remember to make it executable first. chmod +x nginx-install.sh then run as sudo ./nginx-install.sh. By default, Nginx will be installed in '/usr/local/nginx'.

Upstart Nginx

To start/stop Nginx and start on boot we use http://upstart.ubuntu.com/ Provided in the upstart folder is the upstart nginx.conf and the associated bash script which will copy 'nginx.conf' to '/etc/init/' Remember to make it executable first. chmod +x upstart-nginx.sh then run as sudo ./upstart-nginx.sh.

Once installed nginx will start on boot and you can start Nginx as sudo with the simple command start nginx and stop nginx will stop nginx

To check your Nginx install browse to http://localhost and you should see the 'Welcome to Nginx' page

Install eXist

Provided in the exist/install folder is the exist-db install script. Remember to make it executable first. chmod +x install.sh then run as sudo ./install.sh It is ran as sudo but the exist installation itself runs as the user SUDO_USER not as root.

  1. Creates the dir /usr/local/eXist, changes ownership to user

  2. Downloads the latest eXist jar file

  3. As user starts the installation the headless wayjava -jar eXist.jar -console

  4. User must select target path /usr/local/eXist

Upstart eXist

To start/stop eXist and start on boot after nginx we use http://upstart.ubuntu.com/ Provided in the exist/upstart folder is the exist.conf and the associated bash script which will copy nginx.conf to /etc/init/ Remember to make it executable first. chmod +x upstart-exist.sh then run as sudo ./upstart-exist.sh.

Once installed exist will start on boot after Nginx is started. To check your eXist install browse to http://localhost:8080 and you should see the 'eXist' start page.

Nginx configuration

We have 2 server environments therefore 2 different Nginx configurations

  1. A development environment. In the 'config' folder is the bash script 'development.sh'. make it executable chmod +x development.sh then run as sudo ls -a.

  2. A production environment.

Hint 1: When locally developing a web-site sudo gedit /etc/hosts and add entries so your domain names resolve to local-host e.g. 127.0.0.1 markup.co.nz If you want to browse your remote production server you can comment this out or surf using the WWW prefix e.g. http://WWW.markup.co.nz

Hint 2: When browse your remote production server sites in 'firefox' hold down the shift key to force a reload by-passing your browser cache

Common Requirements: For both server and production environments we want our Nginx configuration.

  1. To handle multiple 'domains' without reference to the actual domain. We have a dynamic 'server name', based on the 'domain name', which generates the $domain variable. server_name ~^(www\.)?(?<domain>.+)$; Multiple site domains or sub-domains can be served without changing the nginx configuration. 2. To be file extension agnostic. ref: extension-less-url-the-best-practice-that-time-forgot and the classic Cool URIs don't change. Link to this page '[http://markup.co.nz/articles/nginx-as-reverse-proxy-for-eXist]' requires no 'html' extension. With Nginx rewrites
  2. http://markup.co.nz //should land at the home page 2. http://markup.co.nz/ //should land at the home page 3. http://markup.co.nz/index ///should land at the home page 4. http://markup.co.nz/index.html //should land at the home page
  3. http://markup.co.nz/articles //should land at at the {collection}.index page 6. http://markup.co.nz/articles/ //should land at at the {collection}.index page 7. http://markup.co.nz/articles/index.html //should land at the {collection}.index page 8. http://markup.co.nz/articles/nginx-as-reverse-proxy-for-eXist //should land at {collection}/{resource} page 9. http://markup.co.nz/articles/nginx-as-reverse-proxy-for-eXist.html should land at {collection}/{resource} page
  4. To be Cookie-less. Nginx just ignores Jetty generated cookies. As cookies 'are difficult to cache, and are not needed in most situations' 4. Nginx excels at serving files of the disk, so all resources, styles, scripts, images are handled directly by Nginx bypassing eXist. All images etc are stored in the eXist...data/fs directory so our Nginx server root is '/usr/local/eXist/webapp/WEB-INF/data/fs/db/apps/$domain'. and Nginx will look for our files there. 5. gZip compression of styles and scripts files when the browser sends a header telling the server it accepts compressed content 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate'. On the fly compression can be done but also used is the Nginx setting gzip_static on; which serves gZipped files directly from disk if available.

Local Development Server Requirements:

  1. We do not want the browser caching our constantly changing scripts and style-sheets. 2. We do not want the Nginx acting as a Proxy cache cause we want to see our updated content immediately

Remote Production Server Requirements:

  1. We want to maximize browser caching. We want the nginx server to tell the browser what to cache with the use of the associated headers for our static content. http://www.slideshare.net/rosstuck/http-and-your-angry-dog

  2. Expires header set in the future 2. Cache Control on served images and scripts. Cache-Control: max-age 3. ETag & Last Modified set for static content: images and css 4. Content Length header set 5. We want our server's clock to be accurate other setting header timestamps won't work as expected. To check if your server's clock is correct. go to redbot and enter your sites URL. Note: If note correct ssh into your server and try using ntpdate to fetch from a closer local pool. eg. ntpdate nz.pool.ntp.org

  3. We want to Nginx to act as proxy cache for content initally generated from eXist. If our content does not need to be refreshed every time the page is visited then Nginx can cache the page for a set time and serve the cached page instead of behaving as a reverse proxy for eXist. When the set time expires then Nginx will again act as a reverse proxy for eXist return in a fresh page from eXist. The fresh page will also be cached by Nginx an so Nginx will start to again serve from its cache.