About the NGINX module | Fastly Documentation (original) (raw)

  1. Home
  2. Guides
  3. Next-Gen WAF
  4. Setup and configuration
  5. Module-agent deployment
  6. NGINX module

You can use our NGINX module to deploy the Next-Gen WAF directly onto your hosting environment. In the module-agent deployment topology, the NGINX module accesses request data from incoming requests via the NGINX API. Then, the module passes the data to the Next-Gen WAF agent for inspection via remote procedure calls (RPC) through a Unix domain socket (UDS) or over transmission control protocol (TCP). The agent then tells the module how to handle the requests, and the module blocks, allows, or rate limits requests per the agent's direction.

Choosing an NGINX module variation

Our NGINX module has two variations:

Both module variations implement similar request handling logic to pass the request to the Next-Gen WAF agent for inspection.

The NGINX module variation you install depends on your business and hosting environment requirements.

If you're unsure which module variation to install and aren't already using OpenResty or NGINX Plus, we recommend installing the dynamic module for Stable NGINX Open Source because it doesn't have dependencies outside of NGINX itself.

Module variation NGINX model Module package name Notes
Dynamic Stable NGINX Open Source nginx-module-fastly-nxs This package is compiled with the corresponding Stable NGINX releases. We recommend using a Stable version of NGINX for production servers.
Dynamic Mainline NGINX Open Source nginx-module-fastly-nxm This package is compiled with the corresponding Mainline NGINX releases. The Mainline version of NGINX may contain bugs and we do not recommend using it for production servers.
Dynamic Distribution-provided NGINX Open Source nginx-module-fastly-nxd This package is compiled with the corresponding distribution-provided releases of NGINX. These distribution-provided releases may deviate from official nginx.org releases.
Dynamic NGINX Plus nginx-module-fastly-nxp This package is compiled with corresponding NGINX Plus releases and follows the latest naming convention for our NGINX modules.
Dynamic NGINX Open Source nginx-module-sigsci-nxo This package is compiled with the corresponding NGINX releases. Customers should switch to the stable, mainline or distribution-provided packages that is most appropriate to their use case. Certain upstream repositories that maintain their own NGINX releases may deviate from these builds and cause issues installing.
Dynamic NGINX Plus nginx-module-sigsci-nxp This package is compiled with the corresponding NGINX Plus releases.
Lua OpenResty sigsci-module-nginx
Lua NGINX Open Source sigsci-module-nginx ngx_http_lua_module must be installed.
Lua NGINX Plus sigsci-module-nginx nginx-plus-module-lua must be installed.

Supported versions

Our Compatibility and requirements guide lists the distributions our NGINX module has packages available for. We update our NGINX module after a mainline NGINX release occurs. We will expedite a release when there are exceptions (e.g., critical vulnerability).

NGINX and various other upstreams that supply NGINX builds often stop releasing or updating NGINX packages for certain distribution release repositories after a certain period of time, often coinciding with distribution end of life dates, which is outside of our control. This may mean that for certain distribution releases, certain versions of the module may not be available or the appropriate package may be outdated for your release. If you believe a package should be made available for your version on your platform, contact support@fastly.com.