[OLF 2020] Custom Caching with NGINX Open Source

Speaker: Jessica Dooley

– NGINX Open Source is a F/OSS web server with a powerful feature set.
– Every project has a set of constraints unique to the customer’s needs.
– A small organization can build on innovations that larger teams have shared with the community. You don’t have to re-invent the wheel: ask the right questions and read the manual.

In 2014, NPR’s Digital Services team published a write-up of their NGINX “botcache” webserver configuration, designed to protect Drupal websites from excess bot-generated traffic. In 2020, their project was exactly what I was looking for. I’ll share how I used their “botcache” project write-up as a template to explore NGINX Open Source’s features, and ended up building a customized NGINX caching server that protects Drupal websites from bot-generated load and accelerates page loads while permitting unlimited customer traffic. Along the way, I’ll look at simple performance metrics, scoping a project’s goals to the customer’s desired outcomes, explore NGINX community resources, and share specific configuration choices that generated the most improvements.