Starting nginx without checking for upstream server availability

[John Kemp]

Hi,

I am using nginx in a reverse-proxy situation, with several upstream  
servers on different networks.
I am often testing parts of my server without access to some of the  
upstream servers. When I try to start nginx and even a single upstream  
server is unavailable, I get the message:

> comp:blah johnk$ sudo /usr/local/sbin/nginx
> 2009/01/23 10:24:22 [emerg] 4894#0: host not found in upstream  
> "xxx.yyy.zzz" in /usr/local/nginx//conf/nginx.conf:18

And nginx is not started.

Although I like configuration checking, I'd also like to be able to  
start nginx even when one or more upstream servers are down. Is there  
a way to do that? I couldn't see a command-line option to do so, or  
anything that looked relevant in the config file examples on the wiki.

I am using nginx 0.7.30, compiled from source on OS X.

Cheers,

- johnk