Fetching and caching photos on demand with nginx -

i developing application, use of photos provided third party service. while building first prototype, got images directly service, i.e.

<img src="http://thirdpartyservice.com/img/12345.jpg"> 

it production though, makes no sense grabbing images service every time requested. slow, because serves millions of users @ same time.

i'd build thin layer on top of nginx, fetches, , caches images 24 hours based on demand. instead of calling service every time, i'd rather call

<img src="http://myapp.com/img?url=thirdpartyservice.com/img/12345.jpg"> 

if first time image requested, fetched remote service , cached on servers 24 hours.

is possible nginx?

first suggest not change url format http://myapp.com/img/12345.jpg in case proxy same thirdpartyservice.com. here config example based on nginx wiki.

http {     proxy_cache_path  /data/nginx/cache  levels=1:2    keys_zone=static:10m                                          inactive=24h  max_size=1g;     server {         location /img/ {             proxy_pass             http://thirdpartyservice.com;             proxy_set_header       host thirdpartyservice.com;             proxy_cache            static;             proxy_cache_valid      200  1d;             proxy_cache_use_stale  error timeout invalid_header updating                                    http_500 http_502 http_503 http_504;         }     } } 

there lot of directives cache tweaking in official documentation.