Networking

NGINX

NGINX is one of the most widely used web servers and reverse proxies in modern infrastructure. It is often used at the edge of systems to route traffic, terminate TLS, serve static content, and balance requests.

Reverse ProxyWeb ServerLoad Balancing

Key Concepts

Acts as a reverse proxy in front of backend services.

Can terminate TLS and manage HTTP traffic efficiently.

Often used for load balancing and static content serving.

Common Interview Questions

What is a reverse proxy?

What is NGINX used for?

Why is TLS termination often done at a proxy?

Use Case

Use NGINX for reverse proxying, load balancing, SSL termination, and serving web content.

Common Use Cases

Serving as reverse proxy in front of APIs and web apps.

Terminating HTTPS connections.

Balancing traffic across backend services.

Serving static files efficiently.

Pros

Fast, mature, and widely used.

Very good for reverse proxy and HTTP traffic handling.

Strong fit for web infrastructure and ingress patterns.

Cons

Configuration can become complex in large setups.

Debugging advanced routing rules may be tricky.

Not every workload needs the full flexibility it provides.