Example nginx 0.9.x config for accessing memcached caches directly

example.conf

index  index.php index.html index.htm;

upstream phpfcgi {
    server 127.0.0.1:9000;
}

upstream memcached {
    server example.compute-1.amazonaws.com:11211 max_fails=1 fail_timeout=2s;
    server example.compute-1.amazonaws.com:11211 max_fails=1 fail_timeout=2s;
}

upstream wordpressfcgi {
    server 127.0.0.1:8000;
}

server {
    listen   80;
    server_name  www.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 128M;
    client_body_buffer_size 128k;

    root   /var/www/sites/www.example.com/htdocs;

    ## Set the real IP.
    proxy_set_header True-Client-IP  $http_true_client_ip; # Akamai
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP       $remote_addr;

    ## Set the hostname
    proxy_set_header Host            $host;

    ## Set the forwarded-for header.
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;

## Default location
    location / {
        ## Default type is plain text, need to make it html so that any cache hits by nginx are served as html
        default_type  text/html;

        set $can_cache 1;

        # Bypass memcached for POST requests
        if ( $request_method = "POST" ) {
            set $can_cache 0;
        }

        if ( $request_uri ~ ^/wp-.*\.php ) {
            set $can_cache 0;
        }

        # If logged in, don't cache.
        if ($http_cookie ~* "loggedinuser|uncached|comment_author_|wordpress_(?!test_cookie)|wp-postpass_" ) {
            set $can_cache 0;
        }

  	# Tell memcached when to try another server
		memcached_next_upstream not_found invalid_response error timeout;

        # Pull from memcached pool if possible
        if ( $can_cache = "1" ) {
            # Set the default memcached key using the host + full request uri (including querystring)
            set $memcached_key $http_host$request_uri;

            # Pass the request to memcached
            memcached_pass memcached;

            # Pass any misses or fails to wordpress
            error_page 404 502 504 = @fallback;
        }

        if ( $can_cache = "0" ) {
            # Pass any misses to wordpress
            proxy_pass http://wordpressfcgi;
        }

    }

## Define fallback location for memcache misses
    location @fallback {
        proxy_pass http://wordpressfcgi;
    }

## Images and static content is treated different
    location ~* ^.+.(ico|jpg|png|css|js|gif|jpeg|swf|htm|html)$ {
#     access_log        off;
      expires           30d;
    }

## Don't log requests for favicon
    location = /favicon.ico {
        log_not_found   off;
        access_log      off;
        expires         30d;
        }

## Disable viewing .htaccess & .htpassword
    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny  all;
    }
}

server {
    listen 8000;
    server_name  www.example.com;
    client_max_body_size 128M;
    client_body_buffer_size 128k;

    root   /var/www/sites/www.example.com/htdocs;

    # Check if files/directory exist, if not rewrite to index.php
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    # Add trailing slash to */wp-admin requests.
    rewrite /wp-admin$ $scheme://$host$uri/ permanent;

    # Redirect robots.txt requests to dynamic robots.txt.php file
    rewrite ^/robots\.txt$ /robots.txt.php last;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass   phpfcgi;

        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}