Nginx Configuration¶

To configure nginx, the following template can be used:

Default nginx.conf¶

The dist configuration shipped with nginx looks similar to the following:

nginx.conf¶

user nginx nginx;
worker_processes 1;

error_log /var/log/nginx/error_log info;

events {
worker_connections 1024;
use epoll;
}

http {
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;

log_format main
‘$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] ‘
‘”$request” $status $bytes_sent ‘
‘”$http_referer” “$http_user_agent” ‘
‘”$gzip_ratio”’;

client_header_timeout 10m;
client_body_timeout 10m;
send_timeout 10m;

connection_pool_size 256;
client_header_buffer_size 1k;
large_client_header_buffers 4 2k;
request_pool_size 4k;

gzip off;

output_buffers 1 32k;
postpone_output 1460;

sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;

keepalive_timeout 75 20;

ignore_invalid_headers on;

index index.html;

server {
listen 0.0.0.0:80  default_server;
server_name localhost;

access_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.access_log main;
error_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.error_log info;

root /var/www/localhost/htdocs;
}

# SSL example
#server {
#  listen 127.0.0.1:443;
#  server_name localhost;

#  ssl on;
#  ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/nginx/nginx.pem;
#  ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/nginx/nginx.key;

#  access_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.ssl_access_log main;
#  error_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.ssl_error_log info;

#  root /var/www/localhost/htdocs;
#}
}

Save a coy of this to ‘$HOME/.local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf’

~/documentation $ mkdir -p $HOME/.local/etc/nginx
~/documentation $ $EDITOR $HOME/.local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

or alternatively, copy the entire nginx dist configuration

~/documentation $ cp -R /etc/nginx $HOME/.local/etc

Local nginx dev configuration¶

Add the prefix ‘$HOME/.local’ to all the lines starting with $HOME (expanding $HOME to your full path):

/var/…

In the http block, add the following:

proxy_temp_path /tmp/nginx;
fastcgi_temp_path /tmp/nginx;
scgi_temp_path /tmp/nginx;
uwsgi_temp_path /tmp/nginx;

… and in the server block, change the port from 80 to 8181

listen 0.0.0.0:8181

Check dev-conf¶

Make sure the configuration is syntactically correct:

nginx -t \
   -c $HOME/.local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf \
   -e $HOME/.local/var/log/nginx/error_log

nginx options¶

From nginx -h

nginx version: nginx/1.21.6 Usage: nginx [-?hvVtTq] [-s signal] [-p prefix] [-e filename] [-c filename] [-g directives]

Options:

-?,
-h : this help

-v

version and exit

-V

: show version and configure options then exit

-t

: test configuration and exit

-T

: test configuration, dump it and exit

-q

: suppress non-error messages during configuration testing

-s signal

: send signal to a master process: stop, quit, reopen, reload

-p prefix

: set prefix path (default: /usr/)

-e filename

: set error log file (default: /var/log/nginx/error_log)

-c filename

: set configuration file (default: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf)

-g directives

: set global directives out of configuration file

Remove user and group¶

As this will be a local user running the server, the user directive needs to be removed.

This is used when root launches the process to hand control over to the named user/group.

Add root location¶

Add the following the to server block

root $HOME/git/documentation/build/html;

Making nginx log directories¶

~/documentation $ mkdir -p $HOME/.local/var/log/nginx

Run nginx dev docs¶

To run the server and view the documentation:

~/documentation $ nginx -c ~/.local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf \
   -e $HOME/.local/var/log/nginx/error_log
~/documentation $ xdg-open http://localhost:8181

Create an nginx-dev alias¶

To make launching the server easier, the following can be added ‘$HOME/.bashrc’

~/documentation $ printf "
alias nginx-dev=\"nginx\"\\
\" -c \$HOME/.local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf\"\\
\" -e \$HOME/.local/var/log/nginx/error_log\"
" >> $HOME/.bashrc

Then to launch the server, the following can be used:

~/documentation $ nginx-dev

Obtaining the ‘$HOME’ value¶

~/documentation $ echo $HOME
/home/..