Atomically switch a directory tree served by nginx

This post briefly demonstrates how to atomically switch a directory tree of static files served by nginx.

Consider the following minimal nginx config file:

$ cat conf/nginx.conf 
events {
    use epoll;
}
 
http {
    server {
        listen 0.0.0.0:80;
        location / {
            root /static/current ;
        }
    }
}

The goal is to replace the directory /static/current atomically while nginx is running.

This snippet shows the directory layout that I started out with:

$ tree
.
├── conf
│   └── nginx.conf
└── static
    ├── version-1
    │   └── hello.html
    └── version-2
        └── hello.html

conf/nginx.conf is shown above. The static directory contains two sub trees, and the goal is to switch from version-1 to version-2.

For this demonstration I have started a containerized nginx from its official Docker image:

$ docker run -v $(realpath static):/static:ro -v $(realpath conf):/etc/nginx:ro -p 127.0.0.1:8088:80 nginx nginx -g 'daemon off;'

This mounts the ./static directory as well as the nginx configuration file into the container, and exposes nginx listening on port 8088 on the local network interface of the host machine.

Then, in the ./static directory one can choose the directory tree served by nginx by setting a symbolic link, and one can subsequently switch the directory tree atomically, as follows:

1) No symbolic link is set yet — leading to a 404 HTTP response (the path /static/current does not exist in the container from nginx’ point of view):

$ curl http://localhost:8088/hello.html
<html>
<head><title>404 Not Found</title></head>
<body>
<center><h1>404 Not Found</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx/1.15.6</center>
</body>
</html>

2) Set the current symlink to serve version-1:

$ cd static
$ ln -s version-1 current && curl http://localhost:8088/hello.html
hello 1

3) Prepare a new symlink for version-2 (but don’t switch yet):

$ ln -s version-2 newcurrent

4) Atomically switch to serving version-2:

$ mv -fT newcurrent current && curl http://localhost:8088/hello.html
hello 2

In step (4) It is essential to use mv -fT which changes the symlink with a rename() system call. ln -sfn would also appear to work, but it uses two system calls under the hood and therefore leaves a brief time window during which opening files can fail because the path is invalid.

Final directory layout including the symlink current (currently pointing to version-2):

$ tree
.
├── conf
│   └── nginx.conf
└── static
    ├── current -> version-2
    ├── version-1
    │   └── hello.html
    └── version-2
        └── hello.html

Kudos to https://rcrowley.org/2010/01/06/things-unix-can-do-atomically.html for being a great reference.

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  1. Hadret Avatar

    Thanks for a great post! My two cents:

    1. You don’t have to use --force/-f with mv command. -T is enough in my experience.
    2. It’s worth noting that ln -sfn would also accomplish the task, but when specifying the actual new directory (version-2 in your example), not by linking newcurrent to current, so something like: ln -sfn version-2 current.