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DocsDjangoPlay WebDeploymentNginx — Reverse Proxy

Nginx — Reverse Proxy

Project: DjangoPlay Web Document Type: Deployment Documentation Last Updated: 2026-03-28 Version: 1.0

1 min readApplies to v1.2.2
On this page ▾
  1. 1. Overview
  2. 2. Request Flow
  3. 3. Nginx Configuration Example
  4. 4. Static Files
  5. 5. Media Files
  6. 6. Reload Nginx

1. Overview

Nginx is used as a reverse proxy in front of Gunicorn.

Responsibilities:

  • Serve static files
  • Serve media files
  • Reverse proxy requests to Gunicorn
  • Handle HTTPS
  • Handle caching headers
  • Handle compression

2. Request Flow

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Client → Nginx → Gunicorn → Django

3. Nginx Configuration Example

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server 
{
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;

    location /static/ {
        alias /path/to/staticfiles/;
    }

    location /media/ {
        alias /path/to/media/;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

4. Static Files

Static files should be served directly by Nginx for performance.

5. Media Files

Media files should also be served directly by Nginx.

6. Reload Nginx

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sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx