MAx Web Server version 1.3-14/15 delivers significant improvements to Apache-to-NGINX conversion accuracy, configuration processing, and system stability. This update focuses on enhancing compatibility and ensuring higher reliability in production environments.
The development team has implemented comprehensive Apache configuration syntax support alongside critical bug fixes for logging and configuration processing. Our commitment to data-driven development continues with improved conversion accuracy and enhanced system performance.
Apache-to-NGINX Conversion Improvements
This release includes numerous individual improvements to the Apache-to-NGINX conversion engine, representing the most comprehensive enhancement to date.
Extended Apache Configuration Syntax Support
Limit Directive Implementation: Added comprehensive support for Apache’s <Limit> directive using NGINX’s limit_except functionality. This enables proper HTTP method restrictions with access control, supporting configurations like <Limit GET POST> with allow/deny rules, <Limit PUT DELETE> for write operation restrictions, and complex method combinations for fine-grained access control.
SetEnv Directive Enhancements: Improved SetEnv directive processing to handle edge cases including single-argument usage (SetEnv TZ) and proper environment variable configuration in NGINX contexts. Fixed parsing errors that occurred with incomplete SetEnv declarations.
Conditional Processing Support: Implemented comprehensive <If>, <ElseIf>, and <Else> block processing with proper nested scoping. Previously, nested If blocks were processed independently; now inner conditions are only evaluated when parent conditions are true.
RemoveHandler Support: Added support for Apache RemoveHandler directive
RewriteRule Flag Extensions
Core Flag Implementation: Enhanced support for critical Apache RewriteRule flags:
- QSA flag: Query String Append functionality
- END flag: Proper termination of rewrite processing
- NE flag: No Escape functionality for character encoding control
- T flag: Content-Type manipulation for MIME type setting
- NS flag: No subrequest processing
- PT flag: Pass-through to other handlers
- P flag: Proxy functionality
- QSD flag: Query string discard functionality
RewriteRule Inheritance: Fixed rewrite rule inheritance issues that were causing incorrect rule processing across location blocks.
Query String Handling: Resolved RewriteRule query string preservation issues with QSA flag implementation.
Compression Control Enhancements
RewriteRule Environment Variable Support: Added comprehensive support for Apache compression environment variables set by RewriteRule [E=…] flag, automatically translating them to appropriate NGINX directives. The conversion engine now properly handles no-gzip and no-brotli settings with full compatibility for existing Apache configurations.
Enhanced gzip Directive Precedence: Modified gzip_on_exts and gzip_off_exts directives to take precedence over gzip_types, ensuring file extension-based compression control overrides MIME type settings. This fixes scenarios where compression settings were incorrectly applied based on content type rather than explicit extension rules.
Content-Encoding Detection Improvements: Fixed Content-Encoding detection by file extension in the ngx_http_cl_add_encoding_module, resolving issues where files with non-standard extensions received incorrect Content-Type headers (previously defaulting to text/plain).
Pattern Processing and Regex Improvements
Negative Pattern Support: Fixed processing of negative RewriteRule patterns (!.*index.html$). The converter now properly handles inverted regex matching that was previously causing rule skips.
Backreference Processing: Enhanced RewriteCond backreference support (%1, %2, etc.) in pattern matching, resolving issues where multiple configurations were generating “invalid conditions” errors.
PCRE Compilation Fixes: Resolved multiple PCRE compilation failures:
- Fixed improper argument splitting when regex contains spaces
- Corrected non-capturing group removal
- Enhanced handling of latin-1 encoding characters and escaped spaces
- Fixed trailing backslash issues and quote escaping problems
Configuration Processing Enhancements
Access Control Order Processing: Fixed critical issues with Order deny,allow and Order allow,deny directives where NGINX previously processed rules incorrectly. The deny/allow statements are now properly sequenced at the end of location blocks to match Apache behavior.
Query String and URL Processing:
- Fixed query string preservation in RewriteRule/Redirect/RedirectMatch operations
- Corrected double encoding of special characters in URL parameters
- Enhanced redirect status code processing including Apache aliases (permanent, temp, seeother, gone)
Variable Matching: Updated varmatch implementation to properly run access directives in the access phase, ensuring correct Apache behavior emulation.
Multiple matching blocks: Improved support for the multiple matching blocks without location requirements in NGINX configuration. Added arbitrary variable matching support, creating fast-performance alternative to NGINX’s if”
HTTP_HOST Normalization: Corrected existing processing to properly normalize HTTP_HOST values for consistent handling.
File and Directory Handling
FilesMatch Processing:
- Fixed IndexError when processing empty FilesMatch patterns (FilesMatch “”)
- Enhanced nested block validation (FilesMatch inside FilesMatch is now properly ignored)
- Improved Unicode character processing in FilesMatch directives (.(eot|otf|ttf|woff|woff2))
- Handling of RewriteRule within FilesMatch blocks, resolving “Location match type not supported” errors.
Directory Operations:
- Enhanced directory existence checking (-d, !-d conditions)
- Fixed directory redirect behavior to match Apache’s mod_dir automatic trailing slash addition
- Improved path normalization for <Directory> tags relative to document roots
- HTTP Processing and Compatibility
Header Processing Enhancements:
- Fixed Header expressions support (expr=%{CONTENT_TYPE} == ‘text/html’)
- Corrected Content-Type and Cache-Control header handling in converted configurations
- Fixed Authorization header passing to match Apache’s CGI behavior
- Enhanced header unset operations and conditional header processing
IPv6 Support Enhancement: Fixed behavior differences between Apache and NGINX IPv6 processing. NGINX now properly handles both IPv4 and IPv6 connections with explicit listen configurations, ensuring consistent REMOTE_ADDR behavior and proper allow/deny rule processing.
PHP Processing Improvements:
- Enhanced PHP handler compatibility across different execution methods
- Fixed LSAPI process isolation to prevent cross-server process termination
- Improved PHP parsing and execution consistency
- Fixed a critical issue where PATH_INFO was not being passed to PHP, ensuring proper PHP script execution with path information
- Enhanced LSAPI handler integration with improved PATH_INFO detection and script filename processing when path info is present in URLs
- Improved AddHandler support for PHP file interpretation, including proper handling of PHP file lists
- CGI and Global Processing: Enhanced support for ExecCGI and CGI pages, including better handling of cPanel’s suspended page functionality
Skip and Control Flow Processing:
- Skip Flag Implementation: Enhanced RewriteRule [S] (Skip) flag processing, ensuring proper rule sequence control in complex rewrite scenarios.
- Redirect Chain Handling: Improved redirect processing to handle complete redirect chains, enabling detection of cyclic redirects and ensuring final destination validation.
Performance and System Optimizations
- Configuration Line Length: Increased NGINX maximum configuration line length to match Apache’s buffer size, preventing configuration truncation issues.
- Validation Caching: Implemented intelligent caching for validation results when processing identical configuration filesets, significantly reducing conversion time for large servers with duplicate configurations.
- Bulk Processing Enhancement: Enhanced batch validation capabilities for processing large numbers of domains simultaneously with improved error reporting and validation workflows.
System Reliability Improvements
- Logging System Optimization: Fixed critical issues where max_webserver_stat.log could grow to excessive sizes (up to 21GB), implemented proper log rotation and size management
- Configuration Processing Fixes: Enhanced server domain data handling for accurate tracking across domain changes and migrations, proper server.json domain record updates
- cPanel Integration Stability: Resolved endless reconversion loops on large servers, implemented intelligent hook processing with proper lock management
- Proxy Fallback Intelligence: Enhanced proxy-pass fallback logic for temporary service unavailability, improved 5xx-to-2xx transition detection
- LSAPI Compatibility: Resolved compatibility issues with LSAPI handler integration, improved socket isolation between Apache and NGINX processes
- Wildcard Domain Support: Added comprehensive wildcard subdomain support (*.example.com) with proper DNS resolution and hosts file entries
- Module Integration: Better NGINX module compatibility with updated LSAPI module integration and CGI execution improvements
Recommended Latest Versions
Update to the following package versions for optimal performance:
- max_webserver-1.3-15
- ea-nginx-1.29.1-1
- ea-nginx-mod-apache-compat-1.29.1+1.0.7
- ea-nginx-mod-lsapi-1.29.1+1.0-13
Complete changelog details are available at changelog.cloudlinux.com/max_webserver
Looking Forward
MAx Web Server is currently in Beta but the comprehensive conversion improvements in this release represent a significant step toward our goal of seamless Apache-to-NGINX migration. With enhanced configuration syntax support, improved configuration processing, and robust system reliability, MAx Web Server continues targeting Q1 2026 for production status.
Our extensive Apache compatibility improvements enable successful conversion of complex hosting configurations while maintaining identical behavior between Apache and NGINX environments. This approach greatly improves conversion success rates across diverse hosting scenarios.
MAx Web Server is free with CloudLinux OS as standard, and we update it regularly. For installation instructions and technical documentation, visit docs.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinuxos/max_webserver/
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