Insights from the 2024 NGINX Cookbook: 4 Solutions to Today’s Top Application Delivery Problems

The 2024 edition of the NGINX Cookbook is here, and it’s packed full of new solutions to today’s most common application delivery problems. Since its initial release in 2004, NGINX has evolved beyond its web serving roots to become a versatile tool for load balancing, reverse proxying, and serving as an API gateway, including integration with Kubernetes through NGINX Ingress Controller and enhanced security features. To support these expanded NGINX deployments, the new version of the NGINX Cookbook offers over a hundred practical recipes for installing, configuring, securing, scaling, and troubleshooting your NGINX instances – invaluable whether you’re running NGINX Open Source on a smaller project or NGINX Plus in an enterprise environment. Keep reading for a quick look at sections of the Cookbook reflecting advancements in security and software load balancing.

Streamlining Service Communication with gRPC

Problem:

You need efficient communication between services, specifically the ability to terminate, inspect, route, or load balance gRPC method calls.

Solution:

Utilize NGINX as a proxy to terminate, inspect, route, and load balance gRPC method calls. This setup leverages HTTP/2's capabilities for efficient communication while facilitating high performance and reliability of service interactions through effective load distribution and resiliency features like retries and circuit breaking.

Automating NGINX Provisioning in the Cloud

Problem:

To streamline deployments, you need to automate the provisioning and configuration of NGINX servers in cloud environments.

Solution:

Utilize tools like AWS EC2 UserData and Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for AWS, or their equivalents in other cloud services, to automate the provisioning and configuration of NGINX servers.

Implementing HTTP Basic Authentication with NGINX

Problem:

You need to secure your application or content using HTTP basic authentication.

Solution:

Encrypt passwords using openssl and configure NGINX with auth_basic and auth_basic_user_file directives to require authentication. Ensure security by deploying over HTTPS.

Configuring NGINX Plus as a SAML Service Provider

Problem:

You want to enhance security by integrating NGINX Plus with a SAML identity provider (IdP) to safeguard resources through authentication.

Solution:

Set up NGINX Plus with the njs module and key-value store for SAML SP integration. Then configure SAML settings in NGINX Plus, adjust scripts and files for SP and IdP specifics.

Download the Cookbook for Free

Whether you're just getting started with NGINX or an experienced user, this updated guide provides practical solutions to challenges you’ll likely face when deploying and scaling modern distributed applications. Empower yourself with the latest NGINX best practices and strategies. Download the free ebook today.