Expires directive in Nginx - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using the Expires Directive in Nginx

📖 Scenario: You are managing a website and want to improve its loading speed by telling browsers to cache static files like images and stylesheets. This helps visitors load your site faster on repeat visits.

🎯 Goal: You will create an Nginx configuration that uses the expires directive to set caching times for different file types.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a server block listening on port 80

Add a location block for /images/ to cache images for 30 days

Add a location block for /css/ to cache CSS files for 7 days

Add a location block for /js/ to cache JavaScript files for 7 days

Use the expires directive with exact values as specified

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web servers use caching headers to reduce load times and bandwidth by telling browsers how long to keep files.

💼 Career

DevOps engineers and system administrators often configure Nginx to optimize website performance and user experience.

1

Create the basic server block

Create an Nginx server block that listens on port 80 and serves files from /var/www/html using the root directive.

Nginx

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use server {} block with listen 80; and root /var/www/html;.

2

Add caching for images

Inside the server block, add a location /images/ block that sets expires 30d; to cache images for 30 days.

Nginx

server {
    listen 80;
    root /var/www/html;

    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use location /images/ { expires 30d; } inside the server block.

3

Add caching for CSS and JavaScript

Add two more location blocks inside the server block: location /css/ and location /js/. Set expires 7d; in both to cache CSS and JavaScript files for 7 days.

Nginx

server {
    listen 80;
    root /var/www/html;

    location /images/ {
        expires 30d;
    }

    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Add location /css/ { expires 7d; } and location /js/ { expires 7d; } inside the server block.

4

Display the final Nginx configuration

Print the complete Nginx server block configuration you created.

Nginx

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Print the entire server block configuration exactly as written.