Where does the content get stored?

[Ian Hobson]

Hi,

On 20/03/2019 06:18, waleedkh wrote:
> Hi There, I have a question I am hoping someone can assist with.
> 
> I have a setup with a front end Nginx server on a public IP and two end
> servers on private IP's.
> 
> I am using PHP-FPM fastcgi to do my upstream load balancing on NGinx.
I don't think that statement makes much sense. The front end Nginx 
receives all the requests and has to load balance as it passes to PHP-FPM.
> 
> Each server is a clone of the original NGinx server with all the web content
> sitting on all three of them.
> 
> My question is where does that content actually get served from? I suspect
> it is only on the front end NGinx server.
It is impossible to tell without your from-end nginx config.

What I think you *should* be doing is this:
serve the static files (.htm, .html, .js, .css, images) using the front 
end Nginx. That is the most efficient way to handle those.

Serving .php files that exist using PHP-FPM.

If I understand the set up correctly, you don't need Nginx on the 
backend, and you don't want PHP-FPM to have a public IP for security 
reasons.

The reason for having all the files in each location might be that it 
makes the release process simple, and it also enables the front end 
process to test for the existence of .php files to stop "zero day" 
exploits.
> 
> Does this mean the web content files can then be removed on the back end
> servers (on private IP)?
> 
> If so, is it just fastcgi processing that would then happen on the back end
> servers, so there is no need to have any of the web application files
> running on it?
> 
That is how I would set it up.

Rgds
Ian

-- 
Ian Hobson