But shoulnd't nginx start anyway if the end point is not responding and just try to reach it anyway?


I can't really see why it would need to stop or crash when either the endpoint (apache) or the dns system is unavailable.

Yes it should display 5xx errors saying the endpoint is unreachable (dns or server failure / not-responding) but nginx should not "lock up" after 1 bad answer.

Current problem:

unit starts
dhcp kicks in
nginx get started before dhcp process is completed
nginx realize that content.dev.local is not reachable (dns settings are not yet set by dhcp)
nginx exits
Browser on unit starts, says address is unreachable (as nginx did not start).


Shouldn't nginx just attempt to connect to the end point as requests are coming in?

The solution we consider is the hosts file that would always point to a static ip for the content server, but would be a little management problem as we are deploying in several different location with different networks.