Configuration File Structure#
Nginx configuration follows a hierarchical block structure. The main configuration file is typically /etc/nginx/nginx.conf, which includes files from /etc/nginx/conf.d/ or /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/.
# /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
user nginx;
worker_processes auto; # Match CPU core count
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log warn;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
events {
worker_connections 1024; # Per worker process
multi_accept on; # Accept multiple connections at once
}
http {
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] '
'"$request" $status $body_bytes_sent '
'"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent" '
'$request_time $upstream_response_time';
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
types_hash_max_size 2048;
client_max_body_size 16m;
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}The worker_processes auto directive sets one worker per CPU core. Each worker handles worker_connections simultaneous connections, so total capacity is worker_processes * worker_connections. For most production deployments, auto with 1024 connections per worker is sufficient.