Extended description of HttpLimitZoneModule and HttpLimitReqModule usage with examples and how to exclude a whitelist of IPs can be found here http://gadelkareem.com/2012/03/25/limit-requests-per-ip-on-nginx-using-httplimitzonemodule-and-httplimitreqmodule-except-whitelist/ Posted at Nginx Forum: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,216652,224351#msg-224351