humpangle/nginx_configs

Nginx Configuration Template for WordPress Sites

Nginx Configuration Template

10up uses Nginx as it's standard webserver software on many high traffic, enterprise WordPress sites. This repo is a collection of our configurations and optimizations for performance and security. For most sites, these configurations can be included as-is in your Nginx server and http blocks. For sites that need more customization, these configurations can serve as a reference.

Usage

The .inc files in the includes and security directories are intended to be used as is with no modification. For files like blockxmlrpc.inc that have options, these are controlled by variables that should be set in the nginx.conf file and the .conf file used for the specific site. The template directory contains an example nginx.conf file and an example.conf file that contains the server block. The example.conf file usually goes in the /etc/nginx/conf.d/ directory or in the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ directory.

Certain security rules block pages in WordPress that can impact expected behavior in some use-cases. Notably, the WordPress "5-minute" installation pages in wp-admin are blocked, which will prevent an initial installation from the browser, and sites using these configs must be created with a manual wp-config.php file and database import, or via the WP-CLI command line tool.

Installation

The easiest way to use this repo is to clone it to your /etc/nginx/ directory. All of the include file paths used in /template/nginx.conf and /template/example.conf will work without modification with this method:

1. cd /etc/nginx/

2. git clone https://github.com/10up/nginx_configs.git

Use the nginx.conf file in nginx_configs/template/ to update your existing nginx.conf file in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf where appropriate (you could copy the nginx.conf file over the existing one, but there is some potential to overwrite important settings from your install by doing this). Copy the example.conf file from nginx_configs/template/ to your conf.d or sites-enabled directory and rename it something related to the domain of the site it will configure. In the new example.conf file, comment out or uncomment the include statements that apply to your use case. For example, if you have a WordPress single-site install, comment out nginx_configs/includes/wp_subdir_multisite.inc;. If you have a WordPress multisite subdirectory install, uncomment this line to include this file.

After making configuration changes, remember to test first with nginx -t before reloading Nginx (systemctl reload nginx for systemd or /etc/init.d/nginx reload for SysVinit).

Issues

If you identify any errors or have an idea for improving these files, please open an issue. We're excited to see what the community thinks of this project, and we would love your input!

License

Our Nginx Configuration Template is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.