NGINX Execute Module: Run Shell Commands via HTTP
by Danila Vershinin, March 5, 2026
Learn how to safely install and configure the NGINX execute module for running shell commands via HTTP requests. This guide covers security hardening with IP restrictions, practical use cases for system monitoring, and critical warnings about exposing command execution on production servers.
Read More...NGINX Encrypted Session Module: AES-256 Variable Encryption
by Danila Vershinin,
Learn how to encrypt and decrypt NGINX variable values using the encrypted session module. This guide covers AES-256-CBC encryption for secure cookies, time-limited tokens, and session management directly in NGINX configuration.
Read More...NGINX Dynamic Limit Req Module: Redis-Backed Rate Limiting
by Danila Vershinin, March 4, 2026
Learn how to protect your NGINX server from DDoS attacks and brute force abuse using the dynamic limit req module. This Redis-backed rate limiter dynamically blocks offending IPs with configurable lockout periods, whitelisting, and multi-zone policies.
Read More...NGINX Delay Module: Slow Down Attackers Easily
by Danila Vershinin,
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.
Read More...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.
Read More...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.
Read More...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.
Read More...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.
Read More...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.
Read More...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.
Read More...