The nginx web server can be installed from Homebrew (OS X) or the usual package repositories (Linux). This gist contains a few sample configurations to get started with.

nginx.conf

# /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
# /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

user                    nginx;
worker_processes        auto;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    include             mime.types;
    default_type        application/octet-stream;

    sendfile            on;
    tcp_nopush          on;
    tcp_nodelay         on;
    keepalive_timeout   5;

    gzip                on;
    gzip_comp_level     2;
    gzip_min_length     1024;
    gzip_proxied        any;
    gzip_types          text/plain
                        text/css
                        text/js
                        text/xml
                        text/javascript
                        application/javascript
                        application/json
                        application/xml
                        application/rss+xml
                        application/x-javascript
                        image/svg+xml;

    server {
        listen      80;
        return      444;
    }

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}

setup.sh

# Create a new user to maintain public files
useradd www

# Create folder for site and set permissions / SELinux context
sudo mkdir -p /srv/www
sudo chown www:www /srv/www
chmod 775 /srv/www
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_content_t "/srv/www(/.*)?"
restorecon /srv/www

# Start nginx
systemctl start nginx.service
systemctl enable nginx.service

static_site.conf

# /usr/local/etc/nginx/conf.d/example.conf
# /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.conf

server {
    listen          80;
    server_name     *.example.com;
    root            /srv/www/example.com;
    access_log      /var/log/nginx/example.access;
    error_log       /var/log/nginx/example.error error;
    index           index.html;
    charset         utf-8;

    if ($request_method !~ ^(GET|HEAD)$ ) {
        return 444;
    }

    location ~ favicon.ico$ {
        log_not_found off;
    }

    location ~* \.(?:jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|gz|svg|svgz|mp4|css|js)$ {
        expires 1w;
        access_log off;
        add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }

    location ~ ^(.+?)/?$ {
        try_files $1 $1/index.html $1.html;
    }
}

wordpress_site.conf

# /usr/local/etc/nginx/conf.d/example.conf
# /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.conf

server {
    listen          80;
    server_name     *.example.com;
    root            /srv/www/example.com;
    access_log      /var/log/nginx/example.access;
    error_log       /var/log/nginx/example.error error;
    index           index.php index.html;
    charset         utf-8;

    location ~ favicon.ico$ {
        log_not_found off;
    }
    
    location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|gz|svg|svgz|mp4|css|js)$ {
        expires 1w;
        access_log off;
        add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&args;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        set $no_cache "";
        # If not GET/HEAD, don't cache & mark user as uncacheable for 1 second via cookie
        if ($request_method !~ ^(GET|HEAD)$) {
            set $no_cache "1";
        }
        if ($no_cache = "1") {
            add_header Set-Cookie "_mcnc=1; Max-Age=2; Path=/";
            add_header X-Microcachable "0";
        }
        if ($http_cookie ~* "_mcnc") {
            set $no_cache "1";
        }
        # Bypass cache if flag is set
        fastcgi_no_cache $no_cache;
        fastcgi_cache_bypass $no_cache;
        fastcgi_cache microcache;
        fastcgi_cache_key $server_name|$request_uri;
        fastcgi_cache_valid 404 30m;
        fastcgi_cache_valid 200 10s;
        fastcgi_max_temp_file_size 1M;
        fastcgi_cache_use_stale updating;
        
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
    
    ### Security directives
    
    # Rate-limit to prevent brute force login attempts
    location = /wp-login.php {
        limit_req zone=one burst=1 nodelay;

        # Same as other PHP files
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
    }

    # Deny access to sensitive files
    location ~ /(\.|wp-config.php|wp-comments-post.php|readme.html|license.txt) {
        deny all;
    }
    
    # Mitigate damage if site is compromised
    location ~ /uploads/.*\.php$ {
        # Deny access to maliciously uploaded scripts.
        deny all;
    }
}