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/ Nginx Helper

Nginx Helper

Description

Nginx Helper is a powerful plugin designed to enhance the performance of your WordPress site by managing cache purging effectively. It cleans nginx's fastcgi or proxy cache whenever a post is edited or published, ensuring that your visitors always see the most up-to-date content.

The plugin removes index.php from permalinks when using WordPress with nginx. It also adds support for purging redis-cache when used as a full-page cache created with the nginx-srcache-module. This feature allows for efficient cache management.

Additionally, Nginx Helper supports the nginx fastcgi_cache_purge and proxy_cache_purge directives, providing customizable purging rules. For WordPress multisite installations, it adds support for nginx map, enabling the serving of PHP file uploads even if PHP or MySQL crashes. Follow the provided tutorials for optimal configuration.

Other Notable Features

Here are a few other notable features of this free Nginx Helper plugin.

Cache Purge

Fastcgi

Nginx

Permalinks

Redis-cache

Screenshots

FAQ

Q. Will this work out of the box?

No. You need to make some changes at the Nginx end. Please check our tutorial list.

Q. There’s a ‘purge all’ button? Does it purge the whole site?

Yes, it does. It physically empties the cache directory. It is set by default to /var/run/nginx-cache/.

If your cache directory is different, you can override this in your wp-config.php by adding
define(‘RT_WP_NGINX_HELPER_CACHE_PATH’,’/var/run/nginx-cache/’);

Replace the path with your own.

Q. Does it work for custom posts and taxonomies?

Yes. It handles all post-types the same way.

Q. How do I know my Nginx config is correct for fastcgi purging?

Manually purging any page from the cache, by following instructions in the previous answer.

Version 1.3.4 onwards, Nginx Helper adds a comment at the end of the HTML source (‘view source’ in your favourite browser):
<!–Cached using Nginx-Helper on 2012-10-08 07:01:45. It took 42 queries executed in 0.280 seconds.–>. This shows the time when the page was last cached. This date/time will be reset whenever this page is purged and refreshed in the cache. Just check this comment before and after a manual purge.

As long as you don’t purge the page (or make changes that purge it from the cache), the timestamp will remain as is, even if you keep refreshing the page. This means the page was served from the cache and it’s working!

The rest shows you the database queries and time saved on loading this page. (This would have been the additional resource load, if you weren’t using fast-cgi-cache.)

Q. I need to flush a cached page immediately! How do I do that?

Nginx helper plugin handles usual scenarios, when a page in the cache will need purging. For example, when a post is edited or a comment is approved on a post.

To purge a page immediately, follow these instructions:

Let’s say we have a page at the following domain: http://yoursite.com/about.
Between the domain name and the rest of the URL, insert ‘/purge/’.
So, in the above example, the purge URL will be http://yoursite.com/purge/about.
Just open this in a browser and the page will be purged instantly.
Needless to say, this won’t work, if you have a page or taxonomy called ‘purge’.

Q. Does it need any kind of URL structure?

Yes. When setting the URL structure in Nginx configuration file a trailing slash should always be added.

Q. Can I override the redis hostname, port and prefix?

Yes, you can force override the redis hostname, port or prefix by defining constant in wp-config.php. For example:

define(‘RT_WP_NGINX_HELPER_REDIS_HOSTNAME’, ‘10.0.0.1’);

define(‘RT_WP_NGINX_HELPER_REDIS_PORT’, ‘6000’);

define(‘RT_WP_NGINX_HELPER_REDIS_PREFIX’, ‘page-cache:’);
`

Q. Can I override the redis socket path, username, password?

Yes, you can force override the redis socket path, username, password by defining constant in wp-config.php. For example: