Modules #

Nginx is designed modularly — its features are divided into independent module components that can be compiled into the main binary or loaded separately at runtime. This modular design is the main secret to why the Nginx binary stays small, efficient, and has very low resource consumption: we only include the features we truly need on the production server.

Through modules, we can extend Nginx’s function from a simple static web server into a sophisticated application gateway (API Gateway), a web application firewall (WAF), a dynamic load balancer, and even a custom CDN.

Nginx Module Learning Roadmap #

In this section, we’ll learn the Nginx module architecture and ecosystem from basic to advanced levels. Here’s the learning roadmap we’ll take:

flowchart TD
    Start["1. Understand the Nginx Module Ecosystem"] --> Bawaan["2. Core Built-in Modules<br/>(stub_status, realip, map, geo, auth_request, etc.)"]
    Bawaan --> PihakKetiga["3. Popular Third-Party Modules<br/>(ngx_brotli, headers-more, WAF ModSecurity, geoip2)"]
    Bawaan --> LuaOpenResty["4. Lua and OpenResty Integration<br/>(Dynamic Access Logic, Redis, Rate Limiting)"]
    PihakKetiga --> Dynamic["5. Dynamic Module Management<br/>(Custom C Compilation, load_module, Version Compatibility)"]
    LuaOpenResty --> Dynamic

    classDef default fill:#f9f9f9,stroke:#d1d5db,stroke-width:1px,color:#111827;
    classDef pathStyle fill:#eff6ff,stroke:#3b82f6,stroke-width:2px,color:#1e3a8a;
    class Start,Bawaan,PihakKetiga,LuaOpenResty,Dynamic pathStyle;

Detailed Discussion List #

Here are the details of the topics we’ll discuss in this section: