In order to save server bandwidth and speed up pages, we want to enable the Brotli plugin for Nginx. I found out that Brotli, a very popular lossless compression plugin, is still not included in the official Nginx docker image, so we have to do it ourselves.

1. Results

I pushed the built image to Github’s Docker registry, which can be used directly if you are too lazy to toss it.

You can pull it with the following statement.

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docker pull ghcr.io/zvonimirsun/nginx:stable-alpine-brotli

I used the latest stable version of Nginx, because I don’t keep up with Nginx versions and updates may not be up to date.

2. Solution

The general idea is to compile google/ngx_brotli with the corresponding version of Nginx, and then stuff the compiled plugin so file into the official image so that we can load the module dynamically.

A little note on Dockerfile:

  • build-base : add compile-related tools
  • git : for cloning the google/ngx_brotli library
  • pcre-dev : required for http rewrite module
  • openssl-dev : required for the ssl module
  • zlib-dev : required for the gzip module
  • linux-headers : required for with-file-ato
  • The configure parameters are exactly the same as the official image parameters, except for add-dynamic-module which is used to add brotli

Dockerfile:

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ARG version=1.20.2

FROM nginx:${version}-alpine AS builder

ARG version

WORKDIR /root/

RUN apk add --update --no-cache build-base git pcre-dev openssl-dev zlib-dev linux-headers \
    && wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-${version}.tar.gz \
    && tar zxf nginx-${version}.tar.gz \
    && git clone https://github.com/google/ngx_brotli.git \
    && cd ngx_brotli \
    && git submodule update --init --recursive \
    && cd ../nginx-${version} \
    && ./configure \
    --add-dynamic-module=../ngx_brotli \
    --prefix=/etc/nginx \
    --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx \
    --modules-path=/usr/lib/nginx/modules \
    --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf \
    --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log \
    --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log \
    --pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid \
    --lock-path=/var/run/nginx.lock \
    --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/client_temp \
    --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/proxy_temp \
    --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp \
    --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/uwsgi_temp \
    --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/scgi_temp \
    --with-perl_modules_path=/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl \
    --user=nginx \
    --group=nginx \
    --with-compat \
    --with-file-aio \
    --with-threads \
    --with-http_addition_module \
    --with-http_auth_request_module \
    --with-http_dav_module \
    --with-http_flv_module \
    --with-http_gunzip_module \
    --with-http_gzip_static_module \
    --with-http_mp4_module \
    --with-http_random_index_module \
    --with-http_realip_module \
    --with-http_secure_link_module \
    --with-http_slice_module \
    --with-http_ssl_module \
    --with-http_stub_status_module \
    --with-http_sub_module \
    --with-http_v2_module \
    --with-mail \
    --with-mail_ssl_module \
    --with-stream \
    --with-stream_realip_module \
    --with-stream_ssl_module \
    --with-stream_ssl_preread_module \
    --with-cc-opt='-Os -fomit-frame-pointer -g' \
    --with-ld-opt=-Wl,--as-needed,-O1,--sort-common \
    && make modules

FROM nginx:${version}-alpine

ARG version

ENV TIME_ZONE=Asia/Shanghai

RUN ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TIME_ZONE /etc/localtime && echo $TIME_ZONE > /etc/timezone

COPY --from=builder /root/nginx-${version}/objs/ngx_http_brotli_filter_module.so /usr/lib/nginx/modules/
COPY --from=builder /root/nginx-${version}/objs/ngx_http_brotli_static_module.so /usr/lib/nginx/modules/

3. Enable Brotli

Make sure you use my image or the image built from the Dockerfile above. At this point, the Brotli module file has been added to the image and can be introduced dynamically.

Add the following to the beginning of nginx.conf

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load_module /usr/lib/nginx/modules/ngx_http_brotli_filter_module.so;
load_module /usr/lib/nginx/modules/ngx_http_brotli_static_module.so;

Add to the http section to enable that gzip and Brotli can coexist.

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# brotli
brotli on;
brotli_comp_level 6;
brotli_buffers 16 8k;
brotli_min_length 20;
brotli_types
  application/atom+xml
  application/geo+json
  application/javascript
  application/x-javascript
  application/json
  application/ld+json
  application/manifest+json
  application/rdf+xml
  application/rss+xml
  application/vnd.ms-fontobject
  application/wasm
  application/x-web-app-manifest+json
  application/xhtml+xml
  application/xml
  font/eot
  font/otf
  font/ttf
  image/bmp
  image/svg+xml
  text/cache-manifest
  text/calendar
  text/css
  text/javascript
  text/markdown
  text/plain
  text/xml
  text/vcard
  text/vnd.rim.location.xloc
  text/vtt
  text/x-component
  text/x-cross-domain-policy;

After checking the configuration with nginx -t, apply the configuration with nginx -s reload.

Reference https://www.iszy.cc/posts/e/