If you run a platform with a dozen or more services behind it, you’ve probably seen this pattern. Service A checks an API key. Service B calls out to your identity provider directly. Service C has a half-finished authentication middleware that hasn’t been touched in a while. Every team solved the same problem differently, and […]

Before the latest release, NGINX had to be controlled exclusively by Unix signals. The most notable one is SIGHUP or the well-known “nginx -s reload” command. This configuration method, while very stable, does not meet modern environment requirements: there are very few available options, no direct feedback messages on errors, and no real extensibility. We […]

Note: Written by a human. In blog diagram graphic made by AI. NGINX processes HTTP requests in phases. Each phase is designed for specific actions and decisions on the qualities of the request. However, reading of various parts of the request is spread out through multiple phases. A HTTP request consists of several distinct parts. […]

NGINX Ingress Controller 5.6.0 introduces HSTS as a Policy type for the VirtualServer CRD. This blog gives a quick overview of the feature with some deployment examples and tips on how to correctly configure this policy. Across this blog, we’re focused on: What is HSTS? HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is a security feature that […]

Note: No AI was hurt while writing this blog post. Human tears only. In September 2026 we introduced NGINX 1.31.5 with several core features for one same goal. We expanded the core routing methods and the most critical nginx directives to enable native, non-scripted routing of any API traffic. In this blog post we will […]

NGINX Gateway Fabric 2.7 is a significant release, targeting Gateway API conformance, data plane improvements, and workflow enhancements. TCPRoute and UDPRoute graduate to v1 with Gateway API 1.6, TLS listeners gain Terminate mode, and a new HTTPExternalAuthFilter calls out to an authorization proxy without an NGINX snippet. Seven more NGINX settings move out of snippets […]

NGINX Ingress Controller 5.6 implements more support for configuring NGINX through resources instead of through snippets. HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) becomes a first-class policy across VirtualServer, VirtualServerRoute, and Ingress. Two new annotations close configuration gaps for teams moving off Ingress-NGINX, and the X-Forwarded base headers can now be turned off through the ConfigMap. Operational […]

For over two decades, NGINX has been the workhorse of the modern web. Its classic request-processing architecture—reading HTTP headers, matching a URI location path, and streaming payload data to backend services—built the foundation of modern web traffic management. However, the way web applications and AI agent systems communicate is fundamentally evolving. Modern application stacks rely […]

NGINX 1.31.4 is an incremental release focused on the protocols we all depend on. Backends behind a stream or mail proxy can now see a client’s TLS details alongside its address thanks to PROXY protocol v2, HTTP/2 and gRPC requests to your upstreams follow the standards more closely, and NGINX has stricter checks on malformed […]

NGINX Ingress Controller 5.5.0 introduced the ExternalAuth Policy. This is the second blog post in a two part series that covers the ExternalAuth Policy, and is focused on a real world use...