Content caching with NGINX

In addition to simply proxying the data through, we can use NGINX to cache the proxied content. By doing this, we can reduce the amount of calls to your backend service, assuming that the calls are able to be cached.

Getting ready

As the caching is part of the standard NGINX platform, no additional prerequisites are required.

How to do it...

In order to enable the cache, first we need to define where to store the cached files. This needs to be set outside the server block directive and is best stored in the main nginx.conf file. Here's the directive required:

proxy_cache_path /var/cache/nginx levels=1:2 keys_zone=cache:2m 

Note

Make sure you create the directory and that NGINX has write access.

Then, we can create a block directive to use this cache:

server { 
    listen       80; 
    server_name  cached.nginxcookbook.com; 
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/cache-access.log  combined; 
 
    location / { 
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8080; 
        proxy_cache cache...