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CDN Up and Running - Building a CDN from Scratch to Learn about CDN, Nginx, Lua, Prometheus, Grafana, Load balancing, and Containers.
| Date | Stars |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-24 | 3684 |
| 2026-07-25 | 3684 |
| 2026-07-28 | 3684 |
| 2026-07-30 | 3684 |
| 2026-08-06 | 3684 |
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# CDN Up and Running
The objective of this repo is to build a body of knowledge on how CDNs work by coding one from "scratch". The CDN we're going to design uses: nginx, lua, docker, docker-compose, Prometheus, grafana, and wrk.
We'll start creating a single backend service and expand from there to a multi-node, latency simulated, observable, and testable CDN. In each section, there are discussions regarding the challenges and trade-offs of building/managing/operating a CDN.
## What is a CDN?
A Content Delivery Network is a set of computers, spatially distributed in order to provide high availability and **better performance** for systems that have their **work cached** on this network.
## Why do you need a CDN?
A CDN helps to improve:
* loading times (smoother streaming, instant page to buy, quick friends feed, etc)
* accommodate traffic spikes (black friday, popular streaming release, breaking news, etc)
* decrease costs (traffic offloading)
* scalability for millions
## How does a CDN work?
CDNs are able to make services faster by placing the content (media files, pages, games, javascript, a json response, etc) closer to the users.
When a user wants to consume a service, the CDN routing system will deliver the "best" node where the content is likely **already cached and closer to the client**. Don't worry about the loose use of the word best in here. I hope that throughout the reading, the understanding of what is the best node will be elucidated.
## The CDN stack
The CDN we'll build relies on:
* [`Linux/GNU/Kernel`](https://www.linux.org/) - a kernel / operating system with outstanding networking capabilities as well as IO excellence.
* [`Nginx`](http://nginx.org/) - an excellent web server that can be used as a reverse proxy providing caching capability.
* [`Lua(jit)`](https://luajit.org/) - a simple powerful language to add features into nginx.
* [`Prometheus`](https://prometheus.io/) - A system with a dimensional data model, flexible query language, efficient time series database.
* [`Grafana`](https://github.com/grafana/grafana) - An open source analytics & monitoring tool that plugs with many sources, including prometheus.
* [`Containers`](https://www.docker.com/) - technology to package, deploy, and isolate applications, we'll use docker and docker compose.
# Origin - the backend service
Origin is the system where the content is created - or at least it's the source to the CDN. The sample service we're going to build will be a straightforward JSON API. The backend service could be returning an image, video, javascript, HTML page, game, or anything you want to deliver to your clients.
We'll use Nginx and Lua to design the backend service. It's a great excuse to introduce Nginx and Lua since we're going to use them a lot here.
> **Heads up: the backend service could be written in any language you like.**
## Nginx - quick introduction
Nginx is a web server that will follow its [configuration](http://nginx.org/en/docs/beginners_guide.html#conf_structure). The config file uses [directives](http://nginx.org/en/docs/dirindex.html) as the dominant factor. A directive is a simple construction to set properties in nginx. There are two types of directives: **simple and block (context)**.
A **simple directive** is formed by its name followed by parameters ending with a semicolon.
```nginx
# Syntax: <name> <parameters>;
# Example
add_header X-Header AnyValue;
```
The **block directive** follows the same pattern, but instead of a semicolon, it ends surrounded by curly braces. A block directive can also have directives within it. This block is also known as context.
```nginx
# Syntax: <name> <parameters> <block>
location / {
add_header X-Header AnyValue;
}
```
Nginx uses workers (processes) to handle the requests. The [nginx architecture](https://www.aosabook.org/en/nginx.html) plays a crucial role in its performance.
Leandro Moreira · @Uber · Brazil
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Would you bet a product on this? Bounded 0–100 and slow moving.
matched fp:85fe56a71bfff4c9, topic:tutorial