WP Rocket and Rocket-Nginx Caching on GridPane

Step 3. Install Rocket-Nginx

First, navigate to /etc/nginx:

cd /etc/nginx

And then run:

git clone https://github.com/satellitewp/rocket-nginx.git

We’ve now cloned in all the files we need to complete our Rocket-Nginx setup into /etc/nginx/rocket-nginx. Next we need to generate the default configuration. To do so, run the following three commands: 

cd rocket-nginx

cp rocket-nginx.ini.disabled rocket-nginx.ini

php rocket-parser.php

 The above will generate the default.conf configuration that can be included for all websites. 

Step 4. The tweak for GridPane

This part is the only step that differs from SatelliteWP’s installation instructions. We can now either apply this to one specific site, or all sites on the server. 

To apply to only one site, create a file called “rocket-main-context.conf in your websites nginx directory with the following command:

nano /var/www/site.url/nginx/rocket-main-context.conf

Switch out “site.url” for your domain name. E.g.

nano /var/www/gridpane.com/nginx/rocket-main-context.conf

To apply it to every website on your server you’ll need to edit the main-context.conf in /nginx/extra.d. Open it up with the following command:

nano /etc/nginx/extra.d/main-context.conf

Now in either our website or servers main-context, copy and paste the following:

 # Rocket-Nginx configuration
 include rocket-nginx/conf.d/default.conf;

Now Ctrl+O and then press enter to save the file. Then Ctrl+X to exit nano.

We now need to test our nginx syntax with:

nginx -t

If there are no errors present reload nginx with the following command:

gp ngx reload

Your Rocket-Nginx setup is now complete.

Step 5. Testing Rocket-Nginx

Head inside your website and clear the WP Rocket cache and let it rebuild with the preload function located at yourwebsite.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=wprocket#preload

Then head to your home page in incognito mode and: 

1. Right click -> Inspect
2. Click the network tab
3. Ctrl+R to reload
4. Click your website name in the left hand side at the top
5. Under “Headers” scroll down until you see X-Rocket-Nginx-Serving-Static

A closer look: 

In the images above I’ve got a couple of extra options as I’ve turned on debug, but this isn’t necessary.

What we want to know is:

“X-Rocket-Nginx-Serving-Static: Did the configuration served the cached file directly (did it bypass WordPress): Yes or No.”

Yes is what we’re looking for (as shown above). If you got a No, then you can turn on debug below to learn more (and also try refreshing the page and checking again).

Step 6. Turning on Debug

To turn on debug, we need to open the rocket-nginx.ini file and change the debug value from:

debug = false to -> debug = true

To do this, run the following commands:

cd /etc/nginx/rocket-nginx

nano rocket-nginx.ini

Change debug from false to true, and then Ctrl+O and then press enter to save the file. Then Ctrl+X to exit nano. Next regenerate your Nginx configuration file by running the parser:

php rocket-parser.php

Check your nginx syntax with:

nginx -t

If there are no errors present reload nginx:

gp ngx reload

This will add the following headers to your response request:

“X-Rocket-Nginx-Reason: If Bypass is set to “No”, what is the reason for calling WordPress. If “Yes”, what is the file used (URL).
X-Rocket-Nginx-File: If “Yes”, what is the file used (path on disk).”

Please refer to SatelliteWP’s github and our diagnosing caching issues article for troubleshooting.

Diagnosing Caching Issues