Name

ngx_lua - Embed the Power of Lua into Nginx

Status

This module is still under active development but is already production ready :)

Commit bit can be freely delivered at your request ;)

Synopsis

# set search paths for pure Lua external libraries (';;' is the default path):
lua_package_path '/foo/bar/?.lua;/blah/?.lua;;';

# set search paths for Lua external libraries written in C (can also use ';;'):
lua_package_cpath '/bar/baz/?.so;/blah/blah/?.so;;';

server {
    location /inline_concat {
        # MIME type determined by default_type:
        default_type 'text/plain';

        set $a "hello";
        set $b "world";
        # inline lua script
        set_by_lua $res "return ngx.arg[1]..ngx.arg[2]" $a $b;
        echo $res;
    }

    location /rel_file_concat {
        set $a "foo";
        set $b "bar";
        # script path relative to nginx prefix
        # $ngx_prefix/conf/concat.lua contents:
        #
        #    return ngx.arg[1]..ngx.arg[2]
        #
        set_by_lua_file $res conf/concat.lua $a $b;
        echo $res;
    }

    location /abs_file_concat {
        set $a "fee";
        set $b "baz";
        # absolute script path not modified
        set_by_lua_file $res /usr/nginx/conf/concat.lua $a $b;
        echo $res;
    }

    location /lua_content {
        # MIME type determined by default_type:
        default_type 'text/plain';

        content_by_lua "ngx.say('Hello,world!')"
    }

    location /nginx_var {
        # MIME type determined by default_type:
        default_type 'text/plain';

        # try access /nginx_var?a=hello,world
        content_by_lua "ngx.print(ngx.var['arg_a'], '\\n')";
    }

    location /request_body {
            # force reading request body (default off)
            lua_need_request_body on;

            content_by_lua 'ngx.print(ngx.var.request_body)';
    }

    # transparent non-blocking I/O in Lua via subrequests
    location /lua {
        # MIME type determined by default_type:
        default_type 'text/plain';

        content_by_lua '
            local res = ngx.location.capture("/some_other_location")
            if res.status == 200 then
                ngx.print(res.body)
            end';
    }

    # GET /recur?num=5
    location /recur {
        # MIME type determined by default_type:
        default_type 'text/plain';

       content_by_lua '
           local num = tonumber(ngx.var.arg_num) or 0
           ngx.say("num is: ", num)

           if num > 0 then
               res = ngx.location.capture("/recur?num=" .. tostring(num - 1))
               ngx.print("status=", res.status, " ")
               ngx.print("body=", res.body)
           else
               ngx.say("end")
           end
           ';
    }

    location /foo {
        rewrite_by_lua '
            res = ngx.location.capture("/memc",
                { args = { cmd = 'incr', key = ngx.var.uri } }
            )
        ';

        proxy_pass http://blah.blah.com;
    }

    location /blah {
        access_by_lua '
            local res = ngx.location.capture("/auth")

            if res.status == ngx.HTTP_OK then
                return
            end

            if res.status == ngx.HTTP_FORBIDDEN then
                ngx.exit(res.status)
            end

            ngx.exit(ngx.HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR)
        ';

        # proxy_pass/fastcgi_pass/postgres_pass/...
    }

    location /mixed {
        rewrite_by_lua_file /path/to/rewrite.lua;
        access_by_lua_file /path/to/access.lua;
        content_by_lua_file /path/to/content.lua;
    }
}

Description

This module embeds the Lua interpreter into the nginx core and integrates the powerful Lua threads (aka Lua coroutines) into the nginx event model by means of nginx subrequests.

Unlike Apache's mod_lua and Lighttpd's mod_magnet, Lua code written atop this module can be 100% non-blocking on network traffic as long as you use the ngx.location.capture interface to let the nginx core do all your requests to mysql, postgresql, memcached, upstream http web services, and etc etc etc (see ngx_drizzle, ngx_postgres, ngx_memc, and ngx_proxy modules for details).

The Lua interpreter instance is shared across all the requests in a single nginx worker process.

Request contexts are isolated from each other by means of Lua (lightweight) threads (aka Lua coroutines). And Lua modules loaded are persistent on the nginx worker process level. So the memory footprint is quite small even when your nginx worker process is handling 10K requests at the same time.

We're already using this module very heavily in our production web applications here in Taobao.com, Alibaba Group.

Directives

lua_package_path

• Syntax: lua_package_path <lua-style-path-str>
• Default: The content of LUA_PATH environ variable or Lua's compiled-in defaults.
• Context: main

Set the Lua module searching path used by scripts specified by set_by_lua*, content_by_lua* and others. The path string is in standard Lua path form, and ;; can be used to stand for the original path.

lua_package_cpath

• Syntax: lua_package_cpath <lua-style-cpath-str>
• Default: The content of LUA_CPATH environ variable or Lua's compiled-in defaults.
• Context: main

Set the Lua C-module searching path used by scripts specified by set_by_lua*, content_by_lua* and others. The cpath string is in standard Lua cpath form, and ;; can be used to stand for the original cpath.

set_by_lua

• Syntax: set_by_lua $res <lua-script-str> [$arg1 $arg2 ...]
• Context: main | server | location | sif | lif

Execute user code specified by <lua-script-str> with input arguments $arg1 $arg2 ..., and set the script's return value to $res in string form. In <lua-script-str> code the input arguments can be retrieved from ngx.arg table (index starts from 1 and increased sequentially).

set_by_lua* directives are designed to execute small and quick codes. Nginx event loop is blocked during the code execution, so you'd better NOT call anything that may be blocked or time-costy.

Note that set_by_lua can only output a value to a single nginx variable at a time. But a work-around is also available by means of the ngx.var.xxx interface, for example,

location /foo {
    set $diff ''; # we have to predefine the $diff variable here

    set_by_lua $sum '
        local a = 32
        local b = 56

        ngx.var.diff = a - b;  -- write to $diff directly
        return a + b;          -- return the $sum value normally
    ';

    echo "sum = $sum, diff = $diff";
}

set_by_lua_file

• Syntax: set_by_lua_file $res <path-to-lua-script> [$arg1 $arg2 ...]
• Context: main | server | location | sif | lif

Basically the same as set_by_lua, except the code to be executed is in the file specified by <path-lua-script>.

The user code is loaded once at the first request and cached. Nginx config must be reloaded if you modified the file and expected to see updated behavior.

content_by_lua

• Syntax: content_by_lua <lua-script-str>
• Context: location | lif
• Phase: content

Act as a content handler and execute user code specified by <lua-script-str> for every request. The user code may call predefined APIs to generate response content.

The use code is executed in a new spawned coroutine with independent globals environment (i.e. a sandbox). I/O operations in user code should only be done through predefined Nginx APIs, otherwise Nginx event loop may be blocked and performance may drop off dramatically.

As predefined Nginx I/O APIs used coroutine yielding/resuming mechanism, the user code should not call any modules that used coroutine API to prevent obfuscating the predefined Nginx APIs (actually coroutine module is masked off in content_by_lua* directives). This limitation is a little crucial, but don't worry! We're working on a alternative coroutine implementation that can be fit in the Nginx event framework. When it is done, the user code will be able to use coroutine mechanism freely as in standard Lua again!

rewrite_by_lua

• Syntax: rewrite_by_lua <lua-script-str>
• Context: location | lif
• Phase: rewrite tail

Act as a rewrite phase handler and execute user code specified by <lua-script-str> for every request. The user code may call predefined APIs to generate response content.

This hook uses exactly the same mechamism as content_by_lua so all the nginx APIs defined there are also available here.

Note that this handler always runs after the standard nginx rewrite module ( http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpRewriteModule ). So the following will work as expected:

location /foo { set $a 12; # create and initialize $a set $b ''; # create and initialize $b rewrite_by_lua 'ngx.var.b = tonumber(ngx.var.a) + 1'; echo "res = $b"; }

because set $a 12 and set $b '' run before rewrite_by_lua.

On the other hand, the following will not work as expected:

?  location /foo {
?      set $a 12; # create and initialize $a
?      set $b ''; # create and initialize $b
?      rewrite_by_lua 'ngx.var.b = tonumber(ngx.var.a) + 1';
?      if ($b = '13') {
?         rewrite ^ /bar redirect;
?         break;
?      }
?
?      echo "res = $b";
?  }

because if runs before rewrite_by_lua even if it's put after rewrite_by_lua in the config.

The right way of doing this is as follows:

location /foo {
    set $a 12; # create and initialize $a
    set $b ''; # create and initialize $b
    rewrite_by_lua '
        ngx.var.b = tonumber(ngx.var.a) + 1
        if ngx.var.b == 13 then
            return ngx.redirect("/bar");
        end
    ';

    echo "res = $b";
}

It's worth mentioning that, the ngx_eval module can be approximately implemented by rewrite_by_lua. For example,

location / {
    eval $res {
        proxy_pass http://foo.com/check-spam;
    }
    if ($res = 'spam') {
        rewrite ^ /terms-of-use.html redirect;
    }

    fastcgi_pass ...;
}

can be implemented in terms of ngx_lua like this

location = /check-spam {
    internal;
    proxy_pass http://foo.com/check-spam;
}

location / {
    rewrite_by_lua '
        local res = ngx.location.capture("/check-spam")
        if res.body == "spam" then
            ngx.redirect("/terms-of-use.html")
        end
    ';

    fastcgi_pass ...;
}

Just as any other rewrite-phase handlers, rewrite_by_lua also runs in subrequests.

This directive won't work properly with nginx 0.7.x.

access_by_lua

• Syntax: access_by_lua <lua-script-str>
• Context: location | lif
• Phase: access tail

Act as an access phase handler and execute user code specified by <lua-script-str> for every request. The user code may call predefined APIs to generate response content.

This hook uses exactly the same mechamism as content_by_lua so all the nginx APIs defined there are also available here.

Note that this handler always runs after the standard nginx access module ( http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpAccessModule ). So the following will work as expected:

location / {
    deny    192.168.1.1;
    allow   192.168.1.0/24;
    allow   10.1.1.0/16;
    deny    all;

    access_by_lua '
        local res = ngx.location.capture("/mysql", { ... })
        ...
    ';

    # proxy_pass/fastcgi_pass/...
}

That is, if a client address appears in the blacklist, then we don't have to bother sending a mysql query to do more advanced authentication in access_by_lua.

It's worth mentioning that, the ngx_auth_request module can be approximately implemented by access_by_lua. For example,

location / {
    auth_request /auth;

    # proxy_pass/fastcgi_pass/postgres_pass/...
}

can be implemented in terms of ngx_lua like this

location / {
    access_by_lua '
        local res = ngx.location.capture("/auth")

        if res.status == ngx.HTTP_OK then
            return
        end

        if res.status == ngx.HTTP_FORBIDDEN then
            ngx.exit(res.status)
        end

        ngx.exit(ngx.HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR)
    ';

    # proxy_pass/fastcgi_pass/postgres_pass/...
}

Just as any other access-phase handlers, access_by_lua will NOT run in subrequests.

content_by_lua_file

• Syntax: content_by_lua_file <path-to-lua-script>
• Context: location | lif
• Phase: content

Basically the same as content_by_lua, except the code to be executed is in the file specified by <path-lua-script>.

The user code is loaded once at the first request and cached. Nginx config must be reloaded if you modified the file and expected to see updated behavior.

rewrite_by_lua_file

• Syntax: rewrite_by_lua_file <path-to-lua-script>
• Context: location | lif
• Phase: rewrite tail

Same as rewrite_by_lua, except the code to be executed is in the file specified by <path-lua-script>.

This directive won't work properly with nginx 0.7.x.

access_by_lua_file

• Syntax: access_by_lua_file <path-to-lua-script>
• Context: location | lif
• Phase: access tail

Same as access_by_lua, except the code to be executed is in the file specified by <path-lua-script>.

lua_need_request_body

• Syntax: lua_need_request_body <on | off>
• Default: off
• Context: main | server | location
• Phase: depends on usage

Force reading request body data or not. The client request body won't be read, so you have to explicitly force reading the body if you need its content.

If you want to read the request body data from the $request_body variable, make sure that your client_max_body_size setting is equal to your client_body_buffer_size setting and the capacity specified should hold the biggest request body that your app allow.

If the current location defines rewrite_by_lua or rewrite_by_lua_file, then the request body will be read just before the rewrite_by_lua or rewrite_by_lua_file code is run (and also at the rewrite phase). Similarly, if only content_by_lua is specified, the request body won't be read until the content handler's Lua code is about to run (i.e., the request body will be read at the content phase).

The same applies to access_by_lua and access_by_lua_file.

Nginx API for Lua

Input arguments

• Context: set_by_lua*

Index the input arguments to the set_by_lua* directives:

value = ngx.arg[n]

Here's an example

location /foo {
    set $a 32;
    set $b 56;

    set_by_lua $res
        'return tonumber(ngx.arg[1]) + tonumber(ngx.arg[2])'
        $a $b;

    echo $sum;
}

that outputs 88, the sum of 32 and 56.

Read and write Nginx variables

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

  value = ngx.var.some_nginx_variable_name ngx.var.some_nginx_variable_name = value

Note that you can only write to nginx variables that are already defined. For example:

location /foo {
    set $my_var ''; # this line is required to create $my_var at config time
    content_by_lua '
        ngx.var.my_var = 123;
        ...
    ';
}

That is, nginx variables cannot be created on-the-fly.

Core constants

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

  ngx.OK ngx.DONE ngx.AGAIN ngx.ERROR

HTTP method constants

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

  value = ngx.HTTP_GET value = ngx.HTTP_HEAD value = ngx.HTTP_PUT value = ngx.HTTP_POST value = ngx.HTTP_DELETE

HTTP status constants

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

  value = ngx.HTTP_OK value = ngx.HTTP_CREATED value = ngx.HTTP_MOVED_PERMANENTLY value = ngx.HTTP_MOVED_TEMPORARILY value = ngx.HTTP_NOT_MODIFIED value = ngx.HTTP_BAD_REQUEST value = ngx.HTTP_GONE value = ngx.HTTP_NOT_FOUND value = ngx.HTTP_NOT_ALLOWED value = ngx.HTTP_FORBIDDEN value = ngx.HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR value = ngx.HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE

Nginx log level constants

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

  log_level = ngx.STDERR log_level = ngx.EMERG log_level = ngx.ALERT log_level = ngx.CRIT log_level = ngx.ERR log_level = ngx.WARN log_level = ngx.NOTICE log_level = ngx.INFO log_level = ngx.DEBUG

print(a, b, ...)

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Emit args concatenated to error.log, with log level ngx.NOTICE and prefix lua print: .

It's equivalent to

ngx.log(ngx.NOTICE, 'lua print: ', a, b, ...)

Nil arguments are accepted and result in literal "nil".

ngx.location.capture(uri, options?)

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Issue a synchronous but still non-blocking "nginx subrequest" using uri.

Nginx subrequests provide a powerful way to make non-blocking internal requests to other locations configured with disk file directory or any other nginx C modules like ngx_proxy, ngx_fastcgi, ngx_memc, ngx_postgres, ngx_drizzle, and even ngx_lua itself and etc etc etc.

Also note that subrequests just mimic the HTTP interface but there's no extra HTTP/TCP traffic nor IPC involved. Everything works internally, efficiently, on the C level.

Subrequests are completely different from HTTP 301/302 redirection (via ngx.redirect()) and internal redirection (via ngx.exec()).

Here's a basic example:

res = ngx.location.capture(uri)

Returns a Lua table with three slots (res.status, res.header, and res.body).

res.header holds all the response headers of the subrequest and it is a normal Lua table. For multi-value response headers, the value is a Lua (array) table that holds all the values in the order that they appear. For instance, if the subrequest response headers contains the following lines:

Set-Cookie: a=3
Set-Cookie: foo=bar
Set-Cookie: baz=blah

Then res.header["Set-Cookie"] will be evaluted to the table value {"a=3", "foo=bar", "baz=blah"}.

URI query strings can be concatenated to URI itself, for instance,

res = ngx.location.capture('/foo/bar?a=3&b=4')

Named locations like @foo are not allowed due to a limitation in the nginx core. Use normal locations combined with the internal directive to prepare internal-only locations.

An optional option table can be fed as the second argument, which support various options like method, body, args, and share_all_vars. Issuing a POST subrequest, for example, can be done as follows

res = ngx.location.capture(
    '/foo/bar',
    { method = ngx.HTTP_POST, body = 'hello, world' }
)

See HTTP method constants methods other than POST. The method option is ngx.HTTP_GET by default.

The share_all_vars option can control whether to share nginx variables among the current request and the new subrequest. If this option is set to true, then the subrequest can see all the variable values of the current request while the current requeset can also see any variable value changes made by the subrequest. Note that variable sharing can have unexpected side-effects and lead to confusing issues, use it with special care. So, by default, the option is set to false.

The args option can specify extra url arguments, for instance,

ngx.location.capture('/foo?a=1',
    { args = { b = 3, c = ':' } }
)

is equivalent to

ngx.location.capture('/foo?a=1&b=3&c=%3a')

that is, this method will autmotically escape argument keys and values according to URI rules and concatenating them together into a complete query string. Because it's all done in hand-written C, it should be faster than your own Lua code.

The args option can also take plain query string:

ngx.location.capture('/foo?a=1',
    { args = 'b=3&c=%3a' } }
)

This is functionally identical to the previous examples.

ngx.status

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Read and write the response status. This should be called before sending out the response headers.

ngx.status = ngx.HTTP_CREATED
status = ngx.status

ngx.header.HEADER

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Set/add/clear response headers. Underscores (_) in the header names will be replaced by dashes (-) and the header names will be matched case-insentively.

-- equivalent to ngx.header["Content-Type"] = 'text/plain'
ngx.header.content_type = 'text/plain';

ngx.header["X-My-Header"] = 'blah blah';

Multi-value headers can be set this way:

ngx.header['Set-Cookie'] = {'a=32; path=/', 'b=4; path=/'}

will yield

Set-Cookie: a=32; path=/
Set-Cookie: b=4; path=/

in the response headers. Only array-like tables are accepted.

Note that, for those standard headers that only accepts a single value, like Content-Type, only the last element in the (array) table will take effect. So

ngx.header.content_type = {'a', 'b'}

is equivalent to

ngx.header.content_type = 'b'

Setting a slot to nil effectively removes it from the response headers:

ngx.header["X-My-Header"] = nil;

same does assigning an empty table:

ngx.header["X-My-Header"] = {};

ngx.header is not a normal Lua table so you cannot iterate through it.

For reading request headers, use ngx.var.http_HEADER, that is, nginx's standard $http_HEADER variables:

http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpCoreModule#.24http_HEADER

Reading values from ngx.header.HEADER is not implemented yet, and usually you shouldn't need it.

ngx.exec(uri, args)

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Does an internal redirect to uri with args.

ngx.exec('/some-location');
ngx.exec('/some-location', 'a=3&b=5&c=6');
ngx.exec('/some-location?a=3&b=5', 'c=6');

Named locations are also supported, but query strings are ignored. For example

location /foo {
    content_by_lua '
        ngx.exec("@bar");
    ';
}

location @bar {
    ...
}

Note that this is very different from ngx.redirect() in that it's just an internal redirect and no new HTTP traffic is involved.

This method never returns.

This method MUST be called before ngx.send_headers() or explicit response body outputs by either ngx.print or ngx.say.

This method is very much like the echo_exec directive in the ngx_echo module.

ngx.redirect(uri, status?)

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Issue an HTTP 301 or 302 redirection to uri.

The optional status parameter specify whether 301 or 302 to be used. It's 302 (ngx.HTTP_MOVED_TEMPORARILY) by default.

Here's a small example:

return ngx.redirect("/foo")

which is equivalent to

return ngx.redirect("http://localhost:1984/foo", ngx.HTTP_MOVED_TEMPORARILY)

assuming the current server name is localhost and it's listening on the 1984 port.

This method MUST be called before ngx.send_headers() or explicit response body outputs by either ngx.print or ngx.say.

This method never returns.

This method is very much like the rewrite directive with the redirect modifier in the standard ngx_rewrite module, for example, this nginx.conf snippet

rewrite ^ /foo redirect;  # nginx config

is equivalent to the following Lua code

return ngx.redirect('/foo');  -- lua code

while

rewrite ^ /foo permanent;  # nginx config

is equivalent to

return ngx.redirect('/foo', ngx.HTTP_MOVED_PERMANENTLY)  -- Lua code

ngx.send_headers()

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Explicitly send out the response headers.

Usually you don't have to send headers yourself. ngx_lua will automatically send out headers right before you output contents via ngx.say or ngx.print.

Headers will also be sent automatically when content_by_lua exits normally.

ngx.print(a, b, ...)

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Emit args concatenated to the HTTP client (as response body).

Nil arguments are not allowed.

ngx.say(a, b, ...)

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Just as ngx.print but also emit a trailing newline.

Nil arguments are not allowed.

ngx.log(log_level, ...)

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Log args concatenated to error.log with the given logging level.

Nil arguments are accepted and result in literal "nil".

ngx.flush()

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Force flushing the response outputs.

ngx.exit(status)

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Interrupts the execution of the current Lua thread and returns status code to nginx.

The status argument can be ngx.OK, ngx.ERROR, ngx.HTTP_NOT_FOUND, ngx.HTTP_MOVED_TEMPORARILY, or other HTTP status numbers.

ngx.eof()

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Explicitly specify the end of the response output stream.

ngx.escape_uri(str)

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Escape str as a URI component.

newstr = ngx.escape_uri(str)

ngx.unescape_uri(str)

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Unescape str as a escaped URI component.

newstr = ngx.unescape_uri(str)

ngx.encode_base64(str)

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Encode str to a base64 digest

newstr = ngx.encode_base64(str)

ngx.decode_base64(str)

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Decode str as a base64 digest to the raw form

newstr = ngx.decode_base64(str)

ngx.today()

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Returns today's date (in the format yyyy-mm-dd) from nginx cached time (no syscall involved unlike Lua's date library). .

This is the local time.

ngx.time()

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Returns the elapsed seconds from the epoch for the current timestamp from the nginx cached time (no syscall involved unlike Lua's date library).

ngx.localtime()

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Returns the current timestamp (in the format yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss) of the nginx cached time (no syscall involved unlike Lua's date library).

This is the local time.

ngx.utctime()

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Returns the current timestamp (in the format yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss) of the nginx cached time (no syscall involved unlike Lua's date library).

This is the UTC time.

ngx.cookie_time(sec)

• Context: set_by_lua*, rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

Returns a formated string can be used as the cookie expiration time. The parameter sec is the timestamp in seconds (like those returned from ngx.time).

ngx.say(ngx.cookie_time(1290079655))
    -- yields "Thu, 18-Nov-10 11:27:35 GMT"

ndk.set_var.DIRECTIVE

• Context: rewrite_by_lua*, access_by_lua*, content_by_lua*

This mechanism allows calling other nginx C modules' directives that are implemented by Nginx Devel Kit (NDK)'s set_var submodule's ndk_set_var_value.

For example, ngx_set_misc module's set_escape_uri, set_quote_sql_str, and etc.

For instance,

local res = ndk.set_var.set_escape_uri('a/b');
-- now res == 'a%2fb'

Trouble Shooting

HTTP 1.0 responses

Sometimes you may want to use nginx's ngx_proxy module to proxy requests to another nginx machine which configured a location with content_by_lua. Because proxy_pass only supports the HTTP 1.0 protocol, you have to pre-calculate the length of your response body and set the Content-Length header before emitting any data out. Here is a small example:

On machine A:

location /internal {
    rewrite ^/internal/(.*) /lua/$1 break;
    proxy_pass http://B;
}

then on machine B:

location = /lua/foo {
    content_by_lua '
        data = "hello, world"
        ngx.header.content_length = #data
        ngx.print(data)
    ';
}

Then accessing machine A's /internal/foo using curl gives the result that we expect.

But some caveats apply here:

1. Always set the Content-Length header before calling ngx.print() or ngx.say().
2. Only send out the response body data in a single call of ngx.print() or ngx.say().

Performance

The Lua state (aka the Lua vm instance) is shared across all the requests handled by a single nginx worker process to miminize memory use.

On a ThinkPad T400 2.80 GHz laptop, it's easy to achieve 25k req/sec using ab w/o keepalive and 37k+ req/sec with keepalive.

You can get better performance when building this module with LuaJIT 2.0.

Installation

1. Install lua into your system. At least Lua 5.1 is required. Lua can be obtained freely from its project homepage.

2. Download the latest version of the release tarball of this module from lua-nginx-module file list.

3. Grab the nginx source code from nginx.net, for example, the version 0.8.54 (see nginx compatibility), and then build the source with this module:

    $ wget 'http://sysoev.ru/nginx/nginx-0.8.54.tar.gz'
    $ tar -xzvf nginx-0.8.54.tar.gz
    $ cd nginx-0.8.54/
   
    # tell nginx's build system where to find lua:
    export LUA_LIB=/path/to/lua/lib
    export LUA_INC=/path/to/lua/include
   
    # or tell where to find LuaJIT when you want to use JIT instead
    # export LUAJIT_LIB=/path/to/luajit/lib
    # export LUAJIT_INC=/path/to/luajit/include/luajit-2.0
   
    # Here we assume you would install you nginx under /opt/nginx/.
    $ ./configure --prefix=/opt/nginx \
        --add-module=/path/to/ndk_devel_kit \
        --add-module=/path/to/lua-nginx-module
   
    $ make -j2
    $ make install
   

Compatibility

The following versions of Nginx should work with this module:

• 0.9.x (last tested: 0.9.3)
• 0.8.x (last tested: 0.8.54)
• 0.7.x >= 0.7.46 (last tested: 0.7.68)

Earlier versions of Nginx like 0.6.x and 0.5.x will not work.

Note that rewrite_by_lua will NOT work for 0.7.x, 0.8.41 ~ 0.8.53.

If you find that any particular version of Nginx above 0.7.44 does not work with this module, please consider reporting a bug.

Test Suite

To run the test suite, you also need the following perl and nginx modules:

• Perl modules:

  • test-nginx: http://github.com/agentzh/test-nginx

• Nginx modules:

  • echo-nginx-module: http://github.com/agentzh/echo-nginx-module
  • drizzle-nginx-module: http://github.com/chaoslawful/drizzle-nginx-module
  • rds-json-nginx-module: http://github.com/agentzh/rds-json-nginx-module
  • set-misc-nginx-module: http://github.com/agentzh/set-misc-nginx-module
  • memc-nginx-module: http://github.com/agentzh/memc-nginx-module
  • srcache-nginx-module: http://github.com/agentzh/srcache-nginx-module
  • ngx_auth_request: http://mdounin.ru/hg/ngx_http_auth_request_module/

These module's adding order is IMPORTANT! For filter modules's position in filtering chain affects a lot. The correct configure adding order is:

1. ngx_devel_kit
2. set-misc-nginx-module
3. ngx_http_auth_request_module
4. echo-nginx-module
5. memc-nginx-module
6. lua-nginx-module (i.e. this module)
7. srcache-nginx-module
8. drizzle-nginx-module
9. rds-json-nginx-module

TODO

• Add directives to run lua codes when nginx stops/reloads.
• Add ngx.location.capture_multi to allow multiple parallel subrequests.
• Deal with TCP 3-second delay problem under great connection harness.
• Add lua_code_cache on|off directive to allow .lua files updated on-the-fly during development.

Future Plan

• Add 'lua_require' directive to load module into main thread's globals
• Add Lua VM passive yield and resume (using debug hook)
• Make set_by_lua using the same mechanism as content_by_lua

Known Issues

• WATCH OUT: Globals WON'T persist between requests, because of the one-coroutine-per-request isolation design. Especially watch yourself when using require() to import modules, and use this form:

    local xxx = require('xxx')
  

  instead of the old deprecated form:

    require('xxx')
  

  The old form will cause module unusable in requests for the reason told previously. If you have to stick with the old form, you can always force loading module for every request by clean package.loaded.<module>, like this:

    package.loaded.xxx = nil
    require('xxx')
  

• 64-bit Darwin OS needs special linking options to use LuaJIT. Change the line at the bottom of config file from

    CORE_LIBS="-Wl,-E $CORE_LIBS"
  

  to

    CORE_LIBS="-Wl,-E -Wl,-pagezero_size,10000 -Wl,-image_base,100000000 $CORE_LIBS"
  

See Also

• "Introduction to ngx_lua" ( https://github.com/chaoslawful/lua-nginx-module/wiki/Introduction )
• ngx_devel_kit ( http://github.com/simpl-it/ngx_devel_kit )
• echo-nginx-module ( http://github.com/agentzh/echo-nginx-module )
• drizzle-nginx-module ( http://github.com/chaoslawful/drizzle-nginx-module )
• postgres-nginx-module ( http://github.com/FRiCKLE/ngx_postgres )
• memc-nginx-module ( http://github.com/agentzh/memc-nginx-module )

Authors

• chaoslawful (王晓哲)
• agentzh (章亦春)

Copyright & License

This module is licenced under the BSD license.

Copyright (C) 2009, Taobao Inc., Alibaba Group ( http://www.taobao.com ).

Copyright (C) 2009 by Xiaozhe Wang (chaoslawful) <chaoslawful@gmail.com>.

Copyright (C) 2009 by Yichun Zhang (agentzh) <agentzh@gmail.com>.

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.