NGINX Cookbook

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Tracking connections via the client IP address isn't the only way we can limit connections. We can also set a limit for the server as a whole, which can be handy for preventing the server from being overloaded. Especially, where the system is behind a reverse proxy, this can be a simple yet effective way of ensuring that your website or application remains responsive.

To track for the server as a whole, we again first set the shared memory zone:

limit_conn_zone $server_name zone=serverlimitzone:10m; 

Then, we set our server directive:

server { listen 80; server_name limitcon.nginxcookbook.com; access_log /var/log/nginx/limitcon.log combined; location / { root /var/www/html; limit_conn serverlimitzone 500; index index.html ...