Getting Started with Nginx on Linux: a Complete Tutorial

Nginx

Nginx pronounced Engine-Ex, is a popular and open-source, lightweight, and high-performance web server software that also acts as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy, and HTTP cache. Nginx is easy to configure in order to serve static web content or to act as a proxy server.It can be deployed to also serve dynamic content on the network using FastCGI, SCGI handlers for scripts, WSGI application servers or Phusion Passenger modules, and it can serve as a software load balancer. Nginx uses an asynchronous event-driven approach, rather than threads, to handle requests. Nginx's modular event-driven architecture can provide predictable performance under high loads.



In this tutorial, we are going to get started with Nginx on Linux and use the terminal commands to install and configure a test on it. You will get familiar with all the codes and commands for setting Nginx up and running on your operating system.

What you need to get started:

1. This tutorial is based on Linux. If you are working with Ubuntu 20.04 Linux or Linux Mint, or any other OS of the Linux family, you have a suitable operating system for the following tutorial.



2. A user account with sudo or root privileges.



3. Access to a terminal window/command line

Getting Started with Nginx

1. Installation


First off, you need to update software repositories. This helps make sure that the latest updates and patches are installed.


Open a terminal window and enter the following:

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sudo apt-get update

Now, to install Nginx from Ubuntu repository, enter the following command in the terminal:

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sudo apt-get install nginx

If you are on Fedora, you should instead enter this command to install Nginx.

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sudo dnf install nginx

And if you are on CentOS or RHEL, the installation is done using this command:

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sudo yum install epel-release && yum install nginx

finally, we test the installation success by entering:

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nginx -v

If the installation has been successful, You should get a result like this:

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nginx version: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)


2. Controlling the Nginx Service


Next, we should get familiar with the controlling commands. Using these commands, you will be able to start, enable, stop and disable the Nginx. First off, we should check the status of Nginx service. To do so, you can use the following command:

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sudo systemctl status nginx

And you can see the result:

As you can it is activated and up and running. If it is not activated, you can first start by entering this command in the terminal:

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sudo systemctl start nginx

And then, you will be able to enable it using the following command:

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sudo systemctl enable nginx

If you want to stop the Nginx web service, you can first stop it:

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sudo systemctl stop nginx

And then disable it:

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sudo systemctl disable nginx

Also, if you want to reload the Nginx web service, you can use the following command:

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sudo systemctl reload nginx

And for a hard restart, there is a command as below:

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sudo systemctl restart nginx


3. UnComplicated Firewall Commands:

Nginx needs access through the system’s firewall. To do this, Nginx installs a set of profiles for the Ubuntu default ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall). To display the available Nginx profiles use this command:

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sudo ufw app list

And you can see the result. Neglect the results other than that of Nginx.

To get Nginx access through the default Ubuntu firewall, enter the following:

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sudo ufw allow 'nginx http'

Then you need to refresh the firewall settings by entering:

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sudo ufw reload

For https traffic, enter:

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sudo ufw allow 'nginx https'

And for both you can use:

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sudo ufw allow 'nginx full'

4. Running a Test

To begin running a test, you should first make sure that the Nginx service is running, by checking the status as mentioned earlier. Open a web browser, and enter the following web address:

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http://127.0.0.1

And you should be able to see the following result containing a page with a welcome statement.

Now, if the system does not have a graphical interface, the Nginx Welcome page can be loaded in the terminal using curl:

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sudo apt-get install curl

By entering the following command, you should be able to see the Welcome page contents in the terminal:

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curl 127.0.0.1

And the result is as expected:

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