Stub status module in Nginx - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Monitor Nginx Server with Stub Status Module

📖 Scenario: You are managing a web server running Nginx. To keep track of how well your server is performing, you want to enable a simple status page that shows basic metrics like active connections and requests handled.This helps you quickly see if your server is busy or if there are any issues.

🎯 Goal: Enable and configure the Nginx stub_status module to create a status page accessible at /nginx_status. This page will show live server statistics.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a new server block listening on port 8080

Add a location /nginx_status that uses the stub_status module

Allow access to the status page from localhost only

Test the configuration and display the status page output

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Nginx stub_status is used by system administrators to quickly check server health and traffic without installing extra software.

💼 Career

Knowing how to enable and secure Nginx status pages is a common task for DevOps engineers and system administrators to monitor web servers.

1

Create a new server block listening on port 8080

Write a server block in Nginx configuration with listen 8080; and server_name localhost;.

Nginx

# Add a server block listening on port 8080
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use server { ... } block with listen 8080; and server_name localhost;.

2

Add a location /nginx_status that uses the stub_status module

Inside the existing server block, add a location /nginx_status block with stub_status; directive.

Nginx

server {
    listen 8080;
    server_name localhost;

    # Add location /nginx_status with stub_status
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use location /nginx_status { stub_status; } inside the server block.

3

Allow access to the status page from localhost only

Inside the location /nginx_status block, add directives to allow access only from 127.0.0.1 and deny all others.

Nginx

server {
    listen 8080;
    server_name localhost;

    location /nginx_status {
        stub_status;
        # Allow only localhost access
        # Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use allow 127.0.0.1; and deny all; inside the location block.

4

Test the configuration and display the status page output

Run nginx -t to test the configuration, then reload Nginx. Finally, use curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/nginx_status to display the status page output.

Nginx

# Test configuration and reload Nginx
# Then run curl to get status
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use nginx -t to test, nginx -s reload to reload, and curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/nginx_status to see the status.