Figuring out how to serve many SSL certificates, part 1.

In the process of figuring out how to configure SSL certificates for hundreds (maybe thousands) of domains in a single nginx configuration without a wildcard certificate, I decided it would be cool to use `server_name` as a variable in the nginx configuration:

`ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/$server_name.crt;`

Unfortunately, per this aptly named request on Server Fault—nginx use $server_name on ssl_certificate path—that’s not allowed.

Nginx docs explain it more:

Variables are evaluated in the run-time during the processing of each request, so they are rather costly compared to plain static configuration.

So with that, I’m going to have to generate a bunch of `server {}` blocks that point to the correct certificate and key files before including a common config. I can’t find any examples of this yet, so I’m still wondering if there’s a better way.