Installation

It seems the mainline version is stable enough to be used in production so going with it (rather than the ubuntu package)

Pre-reqs

sudo apt-get install zlib1g zlib1g-dev 
sudo apt-get install openssl libssl-dev
sudo apt-get install libpcre3 libpcre3-dev
sudo apt-get install libgd3 libgd-dev
sudo apt-get install libgeoip-dev

Download latest mainline version from http://nginx.org/en/download.html

./configure --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_image_filter_module --with-http_geoip_module --with-http_stub_status_module
make
sudo make install

Configuration
sudo useradd -G www www
sudo cp /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf.bak


edit /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf
user  www www;
worker_processes  auto;
Some commands
check version: /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -V
Test conf: sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -t
Start server: sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx

client_max_body_size: max size of a client request body.. important if user uploading files default it 1m
client_header_buffer_size: size of request header, default is 1k
internal: makes the location block internal

variables
$arg_XXX : GET parameters
$args: query string

book

found a good ebook at https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://it-ebooks.info/read.php?id%3D3110-1403098234-7e93ec6d9d50bc8eaba59b3334bcfb33&chrome=true

looking at nginx as a replacement for apache2.. mainly to decouple app logic from web-server.
We have been using mod_perl/Apache2 for over 5 yrs.. time for change