Install NGINX In Linux / Ubuntu And Managing

Many of you might be wondering how to install NGINX and manage it in Linux / Ubuntu OS. In this article I will walk you through the installation process and once the installation is done I will tell you how to manage the NGINX server.

In NGINX management you will learn how to check NGINX version, verbose output, test configuration, start, stop, restart & reload the NGINX configuration file.

NOTE: Also I will cover NGINX reload vs restart

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Prerequisites

I hope you might have setup Ubuntu 18.04 server in Digital Ocean, Linode or any other cloud servers.

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Step 1 - NGINX Installation

First update your OS package libraries using the following command

sudo apt-get update

Then run the following command to install the NGINX from Ubuntu package manager

sudo apt-get install nginx

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Step 2 - Manage NGINX Server

NGINX Help List (-h)

This command lists all the available options for NGINX

sudo nginx -h

Check Installed NGINX Version & Exit (-v)

With this command you can check which version of NGINX is installed in your server

sudo nginx -v

NGINX Configurations Verbose Output (-V)

By default you wont get to know which all libraries are enabled with NGINX, to know installed libraries then use the following.

sudo nginx -V

You must get the output similar to the following

built with OpenSSL 1.1.1 11 Sep 2018
TLS SNI support enabled
configure arguments: --with-cc-opt='-g -O2 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/nginx-GkiujU/nginx-1.14.0=. -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -fPIC -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2' --with-ld-opt='-Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -fPIC' --prefix=/usr/share/nginx --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock --pid-path=/run/nginx.pid --modules-path=/usr/lib/nginx/modules --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/body --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fastcgi --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/scgi --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/uwsgi --with-debug --with-pcre-jit --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_auth_request_module --with-http_v2_module --with-http_dav_module --with-http_slice_module --with-threads --with-http_addition_module --with-http_geoip_module=dynamic --with-http_gunzip_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_image_filter_module=dynamic --with-http_sub_module --with-http_xslt_module=dynamic --with-stream=dynamic --with-stream_ssl_module --with-mail=dynamic --with-mail_ssl_module

Test If NGINX Configuration Is Correct (-t)

sudo nginx -t

If everything is okay then you will get similar to the following output

#Output
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Test If NGINX Configuration Is Correct & Print The Configuration (-T)

With -t you will get to know if the configuration is proper or not. But -T NGINX it will print the configuration to console

sudo nginx -T

Check NGIXN Status

To check the NGINX status use the following command

sudo service nginx status

You will get similar output as below which tell the status of NGINX and even few recent logs of NGINX

● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
  Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
  Active: active (running) since Wed 2020-04-22 16:12:15 UTC; 3 days ago
   Docs: man:nginx(8)
 Main PID: 14023 (nginx)
  Tasks: 2 (limit: 1152)
  CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
      ├─ 838 nginx: worker process
      └─14023 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;

Apr 22 16:12:15 stackcoder systemd[1]: Stopped A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.
Apr 22 16:12:15 stackcoder systemd[1]: Starting A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server...
Apr 22 16:12:15 stackcoder systemd[1]: nginx.service: Failed to parse PID from file /run/nginx.pid: Invalid argument
Apr 22 16:12:15 stackcoder systemd[1]: Started A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.
Apr 22 16:13:51 stackcoder systemd[1]: Reloading A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.
Apr 22 16:13:51 stackcoder systemd[1]: Reloaded A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.

Stop NGINX Server (stop)

sudo service nginx stop

Start NGINX Server (start)

sudo service nginx start

Reload NGINX Configuration (reload)

After modification of NGINX configuration you can start, stop, reload or restart NGINX configuration.

sudo service nginx reload

Restart NGINX Configuration (restart)

Similar to NGINX reload you can restart the NGINX configuration file with the following command

sudo service nginx restart

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Difference Between NGINX reload vs restart

NGINX reload (Safer)

When you reload NGINX configuration file and if NGINX configuration has any errors or issues with the configuration settings then it will abort the restarting NGINX server with errors displayed to resolve those.

NGINX restart (Not Safer)

When you restart NGINX configuration file and if NGINX configuration has any errors or issues then it will stop the server and may not possibly restart NGINX server.

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Conclusion

You have learnt how to install and play around with NGINX configuration file. You will also be interested in my other articles related to NGINX

How To Cache Static Files With NGINX Server

Redirect www to a non-www website or vice versa

How To Create Free SSL Certificate With Lets Encrypt/Certbot In Linux (Single / Multiple Domains)

How To Install Linux, NGINX, MYSQL, PHP (LEMP Stack) on Ubuntu

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