Reverse Proxy with Caching

An example NGINX configuration that acts as a reverse proxy with caching enabled.

nginx.conf

http {
    proxy_cache_path  /data/nginx/cache  levels=1:2    keys_zone=STATIC:10m
    inactive=24h  max_size=1g;

    server {
        location / {
            proxy_pass             http://1.2.3.4;
            proxy_set_header       Host $host;
            proxy_buffering        on;
            proxy_cache            STATIC;
            proxy_cache_valid      200  1d;
            proxy_cache_use_stale  error timeout invalid_header updating
                                   http_500 http_502 http_503 http_504;
        }
    }
}

Key points

• proxy_cache_path defines the cache location, structure, and limits.
• levels=1:2 creates a two-level directory hierarchy for cache files.
• keys_zone=STATIC:10m allocates 10 MB of shared memory for cache keys.
• inactive=24h removes cached items not accessed within 24 hours.
• proxy_cache_valid sets how long responses with specific status codes are cached.
• proxy_cache_use_stale serves stale content when the backend is unavailable.