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How to Install and Configure Nginx from Source on Ubuntu 18.04

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To Install and Configure Nginx from Source on Linux

Nginx is an open source web server that is similar to Apache, but very lightweight and also nginx acts as both web server and reverse proxy server. Nginx is packed with several features and some of them are listed below.

  • It serves static and index files
  • Reverse proxy with caching
  • Supports SSL
  • Supports rewrite module
  • Supports gzip, XSLT, SSI and image resizing filters

Installing Nginx

Download Nginx' s latest version from the official site using the wget command from the terminal. 

root@linuxhelp:~# wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz
--2018-03-28 19:23:57--  http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz
Resolving nginx.org (nginx.org)... 206.251.255.63, 95.211.80.227, 2606:7100:1:69::3f, ...
Connecting to nginx.org (nginx.org)|206.251.255.63|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 981687 (959K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘ nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz’ 

nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz               100%[==========================================================> ] 958.68K  --.-KB/s    in 0.1s

2018-03-28 19:24:06 (8.96 MB/s) - ‘ nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz’  saved [981687/981687]

After the download completes, extract the package using the following command. 

root@linuxhelp:~# tar xvfz nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz
nginx-1.12.2/
nginx-1.12.2/auto/
nginx-1.12.2/conf/
nginx-1.12.2/contrib/
nginx-1.12.2/src/
nginx-1.12.2/configure
nginx-1.12.2/LICENSE
nginx-1.12.2/README
nginx-1.12.2/html/
nginx-1.12.2/man/
nginx-1.12.2/CHANGES.ru
nginx-1.12.2/CHANGES
nginx-1.12.2/man/nginx.8
.
.
nginx-1.12.2/auto/lib/geoip/conf
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/clang
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/acc
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/bcc
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/ccc
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/conf
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/gcc
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/icc
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/msvc
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/name
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/owc
nginx-1.12.2/auto/cc/sunc

Navigate to the extracted directory and list all the files in it. 

root@linuxhelp:~# cd nginx-1.12.2//nginx
root@linuxhelp:~/nginx-1.12.2# ls &ndash l
total 724
drwxr-xr-x 6 1001 1001   4096 Mar 28 19:24 auto
-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001 278202 Oct 17 18:46 CHANGES
-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001 423948 Oct 17 18:46 CHANGES.ru
drwxr-xr-x 2 1001 1001   4096 Mar 28 19:24 conf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 1001 1001   2481 Oct 17 18:46 configure
drwxr-xr-x 4 1001 1001   4096 Mar 28 19:24 contrib
drwxr-xr-x 2 1001 1001   4096 Mar 28 19:24 html
-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001   1397 Oct 17 18:46 LICENSE
drwxr-xr-x 2 1001 1001   4096 Mar 28 19:24 man
-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001     49 Oct 17 18:46 README
drwxr-xr-x 9 1001 1001   4096 Mar 28 19:24 src

The directory contains the configuration file and you have to run the configuration file using the below mentioned command. 

root@linuxhelp:~/nginx-1.12.2# ./configure
checking for OS
+ Linux 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64
checking for C compiler ... found
+ using GNU C compiler
+ gcc version: 5.3.1 20160413 (Ubuntu 5.3.1-14ubuntu2)
checking for gcc -pipe switch ... found
checking for -Wl,-E switch ... found
checking for gcc builtin atomic operations ... found
checking for C99 variadic macros ... found
checking for gcc variadic macros ... found
checking for gcc builtin 64 bit byteswap ... found
checking for unistd.h ... found
checking for inttypes.h ... found
checking for limits.h ... found
.
.
nginx path prefix: " /usr/local/nginx" 
nginx binary file: " /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx" 
nginx modules path: " /usr/local/nginx/modules" 
nginx configuration prefix: " /usr/local/nginx/conf" 
nginx configuration file: " /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf" 
nginx pid file: " /usr/local/nginx/logs/nginx.pid" 
nginx error log file: " /usr/local/nginx/logs/error.log" 
nginx http access log file: " /usr/local/nginx/logs/access.log" 
nginx http client request body temporary files: " client_body_temp" 
nginx http proxy temporary files: " proxy_temp" 
nginx http fastcgi temporary files: " fastcgi_temp" 
nginx http usage temporary files: " uwsgi_temp" 
nginx http scgi temporary files: " scgi_temp"

After the configuration, we have to make install using the below command. 

root@linuxhelp:~/nginx-1.12.2# make
make -f objs/Makefile
make[1]: Entering directory ' /home/user/nginx-1.12.2' 
cc -c -pipe  -O -W -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wno-unused-parameter -Werror -g  -I src/core -I src/event -I src/event/modules -I src/os/unix -I objs 
-o objs/src/core/nginx.o 
src/core/nginx.c
cc -c -pipe  -O -W -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wno-unused-parameter -Werror -g  -I src/core -I src/event -I src/event/modules -I src/os/unix -I objs 
-o objs/src/core/ngx_log.o 
src/core/ngx_log.c
cc -c -pipe  -O -W -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wno-unused-parameter -Werror -g  -I src/core -I src/event -I src/event/modules -I src/os/unix -I objs 
-o objs/src/core/ngx_palloc.o 
src/core/ngx_palloc.c
cc -c -pipe  -O -W -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wno-unused-parameter -Werror -g  -I src/co
.
.
objs/ngx_modules.o 
-ldl -lpthread -lcrypt -lpcre -lz 
-Wl,-E
sed -e " s|%%PREFIX%%|/usr/local/nginx|"  
-e " s|%%PID_PATH%%|/usr/local/nginx/logs/nginx.pid|"  
-e " s|%%CONF_PATH%%|/usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf|"  
-e " s|%%ERROR_LOG_PATH%%|/usr/local/nginx/logs/error.log|"  
<  man/nginx.8 >  objs/nginx.8
make[1]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/nginx-1.12.2'

After making configuration enter the following command to install the nginx. 

root@linuxhelp:~/nginx-1.12.2# make install
make -f objs/Makefile install
make[1]: Entering directory ' /home/user/nginx-1.12.2' 
test -d ' /usr/local/nginx'  || mkdir -p ' /usr/local/nginx' 
test -d ' /usr/local/nginx/sbin'  
|| mkdir -p ' /usr/local/nginx/sbin' 
test ! -f ' /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx'  
|| mv ' /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx'  
' /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx.old' 
cp objs/nginx ' /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx' 
test -d ' /usr/local/nginx/conf'  
|| mkdir -p ' /usr/local/nginx/conf' 
.
.
test -d ' /usr/local/nginx/logs'  
|| mkdir -p ' /usr/local/nginx/logs' 
test -d ' /usr/local/nginx/html'  
|| cp -R html ' /usr/local/nginx' 
test -d ' /usr/local/nginx/logs'  
|| mkdir -p ' /usr/local/nginx/logs' 
make[1]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/nginx-1.12.2'

By default, it runs on port 80. if u have an Apache web server already running on your server you should change the port number so we have to Change the listen port. 

root@linuxhelp:~/nginx-1.12.2# vi /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf
server {
listen       8081 
server_name  localhost

Now navigate to the /usr/local/nginx/sbin/ to start the nginx. 

root@linuxhelp:~/nginx-1.12.2# cd /usr/local/nginx/sbin/
root@linuxhelp:/usr/local/nginx/sbin# ./nginx

You can verify the status by using the following command

root@linuxhelp:/usr/local/nginx/sbin# ps -ef | grep -i Nginx
root      31605   1350  0 19:27 ?        00:00:00 Nginx: master process ./nginx
nobody    31606  31605  0 19:27 ?        00:00:00 nginx: worker process
root      31608   7285  0 19:28 pts/4    00:00:00 grep --color=auto -i nginx

You can verify it by accessing from the browser by using the following URL: http://ipaddress:8081.
Web_output

If you want to stop the nginx server you can do that by running the following command. 

root@linuxhelp:/usr/local/nginx/sbin# ./nginx -s stop

Check the version of the nginx server by making use of the following command.

root@linuxhelp:/usr/local/nginx/sbin# ./nginx -v
nginx version: nginx/1.12.2

To check the log making to the below-mentioned directory. 

root@linuxhelp:/usr/local/nginx/sbin# ls /usr/local/nginx/logs/
access.log  error.log

With this, the method to Install and Configure Nginx from Source on Linux comes to an end.

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Frequently asked questions ( 5 )

Q

When should I use NGINX open source?

A

NGINX open source is appropriate if you want to view or edit the source code. you want to compile in 3rd party modules not included in NGINX Plus Extras, or you want to create your own custom way.

Q

Is NGINX Plus a software package or a “virtual appliance” (an image of a virtual machine for ESX/Xen/etc.)?

A

NGINX Plus is the same compact, the software-only package for any supported Linux based system as NGINX open source.

Q

Is nginx a Load Balancer?

A

Nginx, which is a popular web server software, can be configured as a simple yet powerful load balancer to improve your servers resource availability and efficiency. In a load balancing configuration, nginx acts as a single entry point to a distributed web application working on multiple separate servers.

Q

What is a Nginx server?

A

NGINX is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server and reverses proxy, as well as an IMAP/POP3 proxy server. NGINX is known for its high performance, stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption. NGINX is one of a handful of servers written to address the C10K problem.

Q

Why would you use a reverse proxy?

A

A reverse proxy server is a type of proxy server that typically sits behind the firewall in a private network and directs client requests to the appropriate backend server. ... They can also perform additional tasks such as SSL encryption to take a load off of your web servers, thereby boosting their performance.

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