Master Nginx Performance: 20+ Proven Optimization Techniques

1. Worker Processes and CPU Affinity

Set the number of worker processes to match the CPU cores and bind each worker to a specific CPU to reduce context switching.

worker_processes auto;
worker_cpu_affinity auto;

Example for a 4‑core CPU:

worker_processes 4;
worker_cpu_affinity 0001 0010 0100 1000;

2. Event Model and Connections

Use the epoll event model and increase the maximum connections per worker.

events {
    use epoll;
    worker_connections 15000;
    accept_mutex on;
    multi_accept on;
}

3. File Descriptor Limits

Increase the number of open files for the Nginx user and the system limits.

# /etc/security/limits.conf
* soft nofile 65535
* hard nofile 65535
worker_rlimit_nofile 65535;

4. Gzip Compression

Enable gzip to reduce bandwidth usage for text resources.

gzip on;
gzip_min_length 1k;
gzip_buffers 4 32k;
gzip_http_version 1.1;
gzip_comp_level 6;
gzip_types text/plain text/css text/javascript application/json application/xml;
gzip_vary on;

5. Caching and Expires

Configure open file cache and set expires headers for static assets.

open_file_cache max=65535 inactive=20s;
open_file_cache_valid 30s;
open_file_cache_min_uses 1;

location ~* \.(ico|jpe?g|gif|png|bmp|swf|flv)$ {
    expires 30d;
    access_log off;
}

location ~* \.(js|css)$ {
    expires 7d;
    access_log off;
}

6. FastCGI Tuning

Optimize FastCGI parameters and enable keep‑alive connections.

fastcgi_connect_timeout 240;
fastcgi_send_timeout 240;
fastcgi_read_timeout 240;
fastcgi_buffer_size 64k;
fastcgi_buffers 4 64k;
fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 128k;
fastcgi_cache_path /data/ngx_fcgi_cache levels=2:2 keys_zone=ngx_fcgi_cache:512m inactive=1d max_size=40g;
fastcgi_cache ngx_fcgi_cache;
fastcgi_cache_valid 200 302 1h;
fastcgi_cache_valid 301 1d;
fastcgi_cache_valid any 1m;
fastcgi_keep_conn on;

7. Security and Anti‑Leech

Hide Nginx version, enable strict transport security, and configure referer validation to prevent hotlinking.

server_tokens off;
add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains" always;

location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|swf|flv)$ {
    valid_referers none blocked *.example.com *.mydomain.com;
    if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; }
    access_log off;
    expires 15d;
}

8. Kernel Parameter Optimization

Adjust Linux kernel settings to improve network and file handling performance.

net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1
net.core.somaxconn = 1024
net.ipv4.tcp_fin_timeout = 10
net.ipv4.tcp_tw_reuse = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_tw_recycle = 0
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000
net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 262144
net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog = 262144

9. System Connection Limits

Raise the maximum number of simultaneous connections for the whole system.

# /etc/security/limits.conf
* soft nofile 65535
* hard nofile 65535

10. Additional Configurations

Set keep‑alive timeout, client body size, and other common directives for a robust Nginx setup.

keepalive_timeout 65;
client_max_body_size 200m;
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;