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NGINX Delay Module: Slow Down Attackers Easily


by Danila Vershinin, March 4, 2026

The NGINX delay module adds artificial request delays to slow down brute force attacks, scanner bots, and other malicious traffic — without blocking worker processes. Learn how to install and configure it for security hardening on RHEL, CentOS, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Debian, and Ubuntu.

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NGINX WebDAV Module: Full File Sharing Server Setup


by Danila Vershinin, March 3, 2026

Learn how to build a full-featured WebDAV file server with NGINX using the dav-ext module. This guide covers installation, PROPFIND, OPTIONS, LOCK, and UNLOCK configuration, SELinux setup, and security hardening for production deployments.

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NGINX Cookie Limit Module: Rate Limiting Guide


by Danila Vershinin,

Learn how to protect your NGINX server from cookie-based attacks using the ngx_cookie_limit_req_module. This Redis-backed module combines cookie rate limiting with forged cookie detection to block malicious IPs that generate excessive unique cookies.

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NGINX Concat Module: Combine CSS and JS Files


by Danila Vershinin, March 2, 2026

Learn how to use the NGINX concat module to combine multiple CSS and JavaScript files into a single HTTP response. Reduce request overhead, improve page load times, and understand when server-side concatenation still outperforms HTTP/2 multiplexing.

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NGINX Compression Vary: Fix Broken Vary Headers


by Danila Vershinin,

The NGINX compression_vary module replaces the standard gzip_vary directive with smarter Vary header handling. It merges multiple Vary headers into one, removes duplicates, and properly appends Accept-Encoding — preventing CDN cache fragmentation and improving caching efficiency across gzip, Brotli, and Zstandard compression.

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Accept-Encoding Normalization in NGINX for Better Caching


by Danila Vershinin, March 1, 2026

Learn how to normalize Accept-Encoding headers in NGINX to prevent cache variant explosion. The compression-normalize module standardizes client compression preferences, dramatically improving proxy cache hit rates when using Vary: Accept-Encoding.

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NGINX Combined Upstreams: Failover & Sticky Sessions


by Danila Vershinin,

Learn how to merge upstream server pools, implement cookie-based sticky sessions, build multi-cluster failover chains, and broadcast requests across backends using the NGINX Combined Upstreams module. Covers all directives, upstrand configuration, and status variables.

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NGINX Captcha Module: Server-Side CAPTCHA Guide


by Danila Vershinin, February 28, 2026

Learn how to generate and validate CAPTCHA images directly in NGINX without relying on external services like reCAPTCHA. The NGINX captcha module creates server-side CAPTCHA challenges using the GD graphics library, keeping your authentication flows fast, private, and dependency-free.

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NGINX Active Health Checks Without NGINX Plus


by Danila Vershinin,

Set up NGINX active health checks that proactively monitor upstream servers with HTTP, TCP, MySQL, FastCGI, SSL, and AJP probes. Included in NGINX-MOD — no NGINX Plus subscription required.

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NGINX Dynamic Upstream: Add & Remove Servers Live


by Danila Vershinin, February 27, 2026

Learn how to dynamically add, remove, and modify NGINX upstream servers at runtime using a REST API — no reload required. NGINX-MOD brings this NGINX Plus feature to open-source NGINX for a fraction of the cost.

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