nginx

WSL Installation

These installation instructions are specifically for Windows Subsystem for Linux. Source

  1. See WSL cheat sheet for instructions on installing WSL.
  2. Open a terminal, enter wsl or bash to enter the default Linux distribution.
  3. Update and upgrade packages: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
  4. Install nginx: sudo apt-get install -y nginx
  5. Start nginx: sudo service nginx start
  6. Test installation, go to: http:localhost:80
Command Description
ls -l /etc/nginx View nginx installation folder.
nginx -v Quick view of installed nginx version.
nginx -V Detailed view of nginx version.
nginx Starts nginx
ps aux | grep nginx View to see if nginx is running
nginx -h Displays flags you can run.
nginx -s Stands for signal. Can be used to stop nginx, e.g. nginx -s stop

Building nginx from Source

  1. Go to the nginx download page.
  2. There are a few links:
    1. CHANGES: the changelog
    2. nginx-x.xx.x: The source code of nginx itself
    3. nginx/Windows-x.xx.x: The Windows binary of nginx.
    4. pgp: Stands for Pretty Good Privacy. It provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication on the downloads.
  3. Copy the link location of the source code.
  4. Head back to the terminal and download the source code. wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.19.1.tar.gz
  5. Extract it. tar -zxvf nginx-1.19.1.tar.gz
  6. Move into the folder. cd nginx-1.19.1.tar.gz
  7. Configure the source code. Check to see if it can compile. ./configure
  8. It may say a compiler is not installed. One can be installed by running apt-get install build-essential
  9. Then rerun the configuration. ./configure
  10. You may see error: the HTTP rewrite module requires the PCRE library. You can use this command to download missing dependencies. apt-get install libpcre3 libpcre3-dev zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev
  11. Run ./configure again. It should work.

Then we can make custom configuration changes.

To view all possible configurations, run ./configure --help. We can view more in the nginx documentation page.

You can run this command to customize your nginx installation.

./configure --sbin-path=/usr/bin/nginx --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log --with-pcre --pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid --with-http_ssl_module

Flag Description
--sbin Location of the nginx executable to start and stop nginx.
--conf-path The path of the nginx configuration files.
--error-log-path The path of the nginx log files.
--http-log-path Logs of the nginx server.
--with-pcre Telling nginx to use the system’s pcre library for regular expressions.
--pid Process ID path. What we’ll need to know when configuring the nginx system configuration.

Then run make to compile this customization.

Install the compiled source: make install

Adding a Service

Configuring a system service through systemd.

Allows us to standardize starting, stopping, restarting, reloading (configuration), and start on boot.

To enable systemd, we need to add a small script. This can be copied from the nginx website.

  1. Go to the nginx website.
  2. Under Systemd click on its link.

Save this file as /lib/systemd/system/nginx.service.

So run touch /lib/systemd/system/nginx.service and paste the code.

[Unit]
Description=The NGINX HTTP and reverse proxy server
After=syslog.target network-online.target remote-fs.target nss-lookup.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/run/nginx.pid
ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx
ExecReload=/usr/sbin/nginx -s reload
ExecStop=/bin/kill -s QUIT $MAINPID
PrivateTmp=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Configuration

Terms

Main context

Types of Contexts: