Using the Lua SDK with NGINX

Overview

This guide explains how to use our Lua server-side SDK with the NGINX OpenResty framework.

OpenResty extends NGINX with LuaJIT, enabling complex control of NGINX functionality. The OpenResty framework has substantial commercial adoption.

Find a basic Dockerized app in the GitHub repository at hello-nginx.

Prerequisites

To complete this guide, you must have the following prerequisites:

• Basic working knowledge of the LaunchDarkly Lua server-side SDK
• Basic working knowledge of the LaunchDarkly C++ server-side SDK

The C++ server-side SDK is required because the Lua server-side SDK is implemented as a wrapper around the C++ server-side SDK.

Preparing the Lua server-side SDK

Make the source of the Lua SDK accessible to OpenRESTY. You can control imports with the lua_package_path directive.

For example:

http {
    lua_package_path ";;/usr/local/openresty/nginx/scripts/?.lua;";
    ...
}
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Preparing the C++ server-side SDK

Make the source of the C++ server-side SDK accessible to the dynamic linker. The most convenient way to do this is to install the binary system-wide at /usr/lib/libldserverapi.so.

Ensuring correct initialization

The most important part of effective SDK usage is managing the lifetime of clients correctly. Because NGINX utilizes process based concurrency, multiple clients initiate. If you accidentally initiate a client per request the application will be substantially slower, as the SDK has to download a fresh ruleset from LaunchDarkly.

Initialize each NGINX worker process exactly once for ideal operations. You can do this with the init_worker_by_lua_file directive. This directive executes a script when a process is freshly spawned. Client initialization should reside in this script. In the example below, this file is called shared.lua.

Here is an example of initialization logic:

local ld = require("launchdarkly_server_sdk")
local os = require("os")
return ld.clientInit(os.getenv(sdk_key), 1000, config)
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Later we can use the result of this initialization process in other directives.

local ld     = require("launchdarkly_server_sdk")
local client = require("shared")
local os     = require("os")
local context = ld.makeContext({
    user = {
      key = "abc"
    }
})
if client:boolVariation(context, "flag-key-123abc", false) then
    ngx.say("<p>feature launched</p>")
else
    ngx.say("<p>feature not launched</p>")
end
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Example: Feature flagged reverse proxy

This reverse proxy example demonstrates more complex interaction between multiple NGINX directives. You can use a reverse proxy to route traffic to multiple applications.

The example follows:

location / {
    set $proxy_host "";
    rewrite_by_lua_block {
        local ld     = require("launchdarkly_server_sdk")
        local client = require("shared")
        local context = ld.makeContext({
            user = {
              key = "abc"
            }
        })
        ngx.var.proxy_host = client:stringVariation(context, "flag-key-123abc", "10.0.0.0")
    }
    proxy_pass                       https://$proxy_host$uri;
    proxy_set_header Host            $proxy_host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
}
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