Unit 1.16.0 Released§

Hi,

I’m glad to announce a new release of NGINX Unit.

In this release, we continue improving the functionality related to proxying and static media asset handling.

Now, the new upstreams object enables creating server groups for weighted round-robin load balancing:

{
    "listeners": {
        "*:80": {
            "pass": "upstreams/rr-lb"
        }
    },

    "upstreams": {
        "rr-lb": {
            "servers": {
                "192.168.0.100:8080": { },
                "192.168.0.101:8080": {
                    "weight": 2
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

See the docs for details: https://unit.nginx.org/configuration/#configuration-upstreams

So far, it’s rather basic, but many more proxying and load-balancing features are planned for future releases.

By its design, the new fallback option is somewhat similar to the try_files directive in nginx. It allows proceeding to another action if a file isn’t available:

{
    "share": "/data/www/",

    "fallback": {
        "pass": "applications/php"
    }
}

In the example above, an attempt is made first to serve a request with a file from the /data/www/ directory. If there’s no such file, the request is passed to the php application.

Also, you can chain such fallback actions:

{
    "share": "/data/www/",

    "fallback": {
        "share": "/data/cache/",

        "fallback": {
            "proxy": "http://127.0.0.1:9000"
        }
    }
}

More info: https://unit.nginx.org/configuration/#configuration-fallback

Finally, configurations you upload can use line (//) and block (/* */) comments. Now, Unit doesn’t complain; instead, it strips them from the JSON payload. This comes in handy if you store your configuration in a file and edit it manually.

Changes with Unit 1.16.0                                         12 Mar 2020

    *) Feature: basic load-balancing support with round-robin.

    *) Feature: a "fallback" option that performs an alternative action if a
       request can't be served from the "share" directory.

    *) Feature: reduced memory consumption by dumping large request bodies
       to disk.

    *) Feature: stripping UTF-8 BOM and JavaScript-style comments from
       uploaded JSON.

    *) Bugfix: negative address matching in router might work improperly in
       combination with non-negative patterns.

    *) Bugfix: Java Spring applications failed to run; the bug had appeared
       in 1.10.0.

    *) Bugfix: PHP 7.4 was broken if it was built with thread safety
       enabled.

    *) Bugfix: compatibility issues with some Python applications.

To keep the finger on the pulse, see our further plans in the roadmap here: https://github.com/orgs/nginx/projects/1

Also, good news for macOS users! Now, there’s a Homebrew tap for Unit: https://unit.nginx.org/installation/#homebrew

Stay healthy!

wbr, Valentin V. Bartenev