Disable caching when serving static files with Nginx (for development)

Since the answer is somehow hidden in the question – here is the solution for nginx in a VirtualBox environment as standalone answer.

In your nginx config (usally /etc/nginx/nginx.conf) or vhost config file change the sendfile parameter to off:

sendfile  off;

While sendfile is at the heart of Nginx’s fame (blazing-fast low-level static file serving efficiency) it might be a bane for local development, e.g. Javascripts that change often and need to be reloaded. Nonetheless Nginx sendfile is smart and probably isn’t most people’s issue; check your browser’s “disable cache” options as well!

Related Posts:

  1. Can I do fragment caching with NGINX fastcgi?
  2. Must I install a plugin for Nginx object caching? [closed]
  3. Setting expires headers for static content served from nginx
  4. How can I use environment variables in Nginx.conf
  5. “413 Request Entity Too Large” in Nginx with “client_max_body_size” set
  6. Nginx: Failed to start A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
  7. NGINX: upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream
  8. How to fix nginx throws 400 bad request headers on any header testing tools?
  9. How to use NGINX as forward proxy for any requested location?
  10. “configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed”: How do I know why this happened?
  11. nginx – two subdomain configuration
  12. GeoIP.dat.gz and GeoLiteCity.dat.gz not longer available? Getting 404 trying to load it
  13. Optimize apache for WP use
  14. Nginx FastCGI_Cache Vs PHP Caching
  15. Nginx + WordPress + HHVM: Why isn’t Batcache working? Would Varnish help even more?
  16. wp-json/ return 404, but wp-json/wp/v2/ works fine on my nginx server
  17. My WordPress site always displays a cached version of its homepage
  18. Cache issues with redis and nginx
  19. ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS status 302, how to configure NGINX locations to work with AWS ALB?
  20. Possible to configure nginx to ignore cache for logged in users in certain roles only?
  21. NGINX conf on WP Multisite enabled — subdirectory — images fail to load after updates
  22. Configuring Routing Rules for WordPress+Nginx and WP-SuperCache?
  23. Installation failed: Could not create directory – CentOS 7
  24. PHP Code stuck in Cache [Memcached] [closed]
  25. REST API parameters not working with nginx
  26. Difference between these two nginx try_files statements for WordPress?
  27. How to test drive WordPress on VPS with LEMP stack before going live?
  28. nginx.conf appeared in all WordPress installations on folder
  29. nginx php-fpm, and auto updates?
  30. WordPress and nginx, download some pages instead of serving them
  31. nginx wordpress subdirectory Invalid post type
  32. Nginx + Redirection Plugin breaks Permalinks [closed]
  33. ERROR: No such service: nginx when building wordpress with docker [closed]
  34. Nginx tries the wrong file when http_cookie matches logged_in
  35. Site resolves to www in Firefox and without in Chrome
  36. WordPress Nginx Won’t 404
  37. WordPress file not found and 403 forbidden
  38. WordPress & Fastcgi proper setup?
  39. Correct regex for Nginx FastCGI cache?
  40. Random occurences of 502 Bad Gateway using WordPress and Nginx
  41. SSL via different domain & path with NGINX/PHP-FPM/WP
  42. Limit file downloads to logged in users (WP + Nginx)
  43. /blog/wp-json/ nginx return 404
  44. WordPress with Photocrati Theme keeps resetting site URL – help solving underlying problem
  45. NGINX / WordPress Site – Increasing php.ini max_execution_time = 600 doesn’t work
  46. Nginx redirects to an extra subdirectory
  47. Jetpack stats and caching strategy [closed]
  48. Something is injecting a slash after any static file response , server is nginx
  49. Scheduling doesn’t work due to caching?
  50. Custom permalinks not work on Nginx + Apache
  51. Last-Modified header is removed from server response!
  52. Do I need a DNS on a home network?
  53. 504 Gateway Time-out nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu)
  54. WordPress + Nginx (Lightsail) problem with ajax
  55. permalinks constantly needs re-saving
  56. Proxy caching WordPress with Nginx
  57. Apache extensions for WordPress’ working without troubles
  58. How to configure nginx for wordpress
  59. Pagespeed Error in Nginx
  60. Rewrite old post images to https
  61. Varnish + Nginx for WordPress is Good?
  62. Access denied unless I add trailing /
  63. Pages, aside from admin-side and the home page, read “500 Internal Server Error – nginx/1.1.19”.
  64. nginx + wordpress: Best practices for configuring it to be secure, reliable, and fast? [closed]
  65. Nginx how to redirect index.php
  66. In Nginx, how can I rewrite all http requests to https while maintaining sub-domain?
  67. Why do I need Nginx and something like Gunicorn?
  68. Nginx reverse proxy + URL rewrite
  69. How can I see which flags Nginx was compiled with?
  70. How to force or redirect to SSL in nginx?
  71. How do I add Access-Control-Allow-Origin in NGINX?
  72. nginx HTTPS serving with same config as HTTP
  73. How to reply with 200 from Nginx, without serving a file?
  74. Nginx config reload without downtime
  75. How do you restart php-fpm?
  76. Nginx enable site command
  77. How to remove the path with an nginx proxy_pass
  78. How to output variable in nginx log for debugging
  79. Make nginx to pass hostname of the upstream when reverseproxying
  80. connect() failed (111: Connection refused) while connecting to upstream
  81. Can I hide all server / os info?
  82. Nginx 1 FastCGI sent in stderr: “Primary script unknown”
  83. Nginx: How do I forward an HTTP request to another port?
  84. How to restart nginx?
  85. How to disable timeout for nginx?
  86. What does this nginx error “rewrite or internal redirection cycle” mean?
  87. How does try_files work?
  88. nginx – client request body is buffered to a temporary file
  89. Do you need separate IPv4 and IPv6 listen directives in nginx?
  90. an upstream response is buffered to a temporary file
  91. How to make a modification take affect without restarting nginx?
  92. How to use nested Nginx location blocks (prefixes vs. regex directives)?
  93. Nginx Redirect via Proxy, Rewrite and Preserve URL
  94. Nginx – root versus alias, for serving single files?
  95. Why do I need nginx when I have uWSGI
  96. What’s the difference between the “mainline” and “stable” branches of nginx?
  97. Nginx redirect one path to another
  98. Remove “www” and redirect to “https” with nginx
  99. Loading WordPress Site Inside iframe won’t allow users to login
  100. How can I improve and optimise my wordpress web server for better performance in 2023

Leave a Comment