The quickest, and easiest, way to install NGINX is to simply use your OS-provided version. Most of the time, these are kept fairly updated; however, for some Linux distributions focusing on stability, you may only have older versions of NGINX available. Sometimes, your Linux distribution may provide multiple versions of NGINX with different compile flags.

In general, before embarking on a more complex journey, we should check whether we can use the easy solution. For Red Hat Linux-based operating systems, we need to enable the EPEL repo first and then do the same:

yum install epel-release
yum search nginx
yum info PACKAGE_NAME
yum install PACKAGE_NAME

For a Debian-based operating system, we first find the NGINX compiles available and then get the information for the one we want:

apt-cache search nginx
apt-cache show PACKAGE_NAME
apt install PACKAGE_NAME

If the version provided is current enough, then you’re ready to configure...

There are situations where compiling NGINX from source is preferable. It gives us the most flexibility regarding modules, so we can customize better for our intended usage. For example, we could compile a very lean version for embedded hardware.

Additionally, we can make sure we use the latest version of NGINX and have all new features available to us. Keep in mind, though, that when installing software from source, you are responsible for keeping it updated. NGINX, just like every other piece of software, sometimes finds security issues that it needs to address. An OS package is much easier to update than a source installation but, so long as you’re aware of the need to maintain it yourself, there is absolutely no problem.

Depending on the optional modules that you select at compile time, you will perhaps need different prerequisites. We will guide you through the process of installing the most common ones, such as GCC, PCRE, zlib, and OpenSSL...

This approach to the download process will lead us to discover the various resources at the disposal of server administrators, websites, communities, and wikis all relating to NGINX. We will also quickly discuss the different version branches available to you, and eventually, select the most appropriate one for your setup.

Websites and resources

Although NGINX is a relatively new and growing project, there are already a good number of resources available on the World Wide Web (WWW) and an active community of administrators and developers.

The official website, which is https://nginx.org/, currently serves as an official documentation reference and provides links from which to download the latest version of the application source code and binaries. A wiki is also available at https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/ and offers a wide selection of additional resources such as installation guides for various operating systems, tutorials...

There are usually three steps when building an application from source—configuration, compilation, and installation. The configuration step allows you to select a number of options that will not be editable after the program is built, as it has a direct impact on the project binaries. Consequently, it is a very important stage that you need to follow carefully if you want to avoid surprises later, such as the lack of a specific module or files being located in a random folder.

The process consists of appending certain switches to the configure script that comes with the source code. We will discover the three types of switches that you can activate, but let us first study the easiest way to proceed.

The easy way

If, for some reason, you do not want to bother with the configuration step, such as for testing purposes or simply because you will be recompiling the application in the future, you may simply use the configure...

At this stage, you should have successfully built and installed NGINX. The default location for the output files is /usr/local/nginx, so we will be basing future examples using this path to start, stop, run at boot, and keep an eye on the NGINX status using a daemon.

Daemons and services

The next step is obviously to execute NGINX. However, before doing so, it’s important to understand the nature of this application. There are two types of computer applications—those that require immediate user input, thus running in the foreground, and those that do not, thus running in the background. NGINX is of the latter type, often referred to as daemon. Daemon names usually come with a trailing d and a couple of examples can be mentioned here—httpd (the HTTP server daemon) is the name given to Apache under several Linux distributions, and named is the name server daemon. cron is the task scheduler—although, as you will notice, it...

In this section, we will create a script that will transform the NGINX daemon into an actual system service. This will result in mainly two outcomes—the daemon will be controllable using standard commands and, more importantly, it will automatically be launched on system startup and stopped on system shutdown.

systemd unit file

Most Linux-based operating systems to date use a systemd-style service file. Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, and centOS all use systemd nowadays; therefore, this service file should work on any popular linux distribution. There is other init software, such as System V and OpenRC; however, we will stick with the more popular and most supported init.

In this example, we will be using the NGINX service file provided by the official NGINX website:

1. Create a file by using the following command:

   nano /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service

Figure 1.3: Default systemd service file for Nginx

Note...

As of mid-2013, NGINX, Inc., the company behind the NGINX project, also offers a paid subscription called NGINX Plus. The announcement came as a surprise for the open source community but several companies quickly jumped on the bandwagon and reported amazing improvements in terms of performance and scalability.

NGINX, Inc., the high-performance web company, today announced the availability of NGINX Plus, a fully-supported version of the popular NGINX open source software complete with advanced features and offered with professional services. The product is developed and supported by the core engineering team at Nginx Inc., and is available immediately on a subscription basis.

As business requirements continue to evolve rapidly, such as the shift to mobile and the explosion of dynamic content on the Web, CIOs are continuously looking for opportunities to increase application performance and development agility, while...

This chapter covered a number of critical steps. We first made sure that your system contained all the required components for compiling NGINX. We then proceeded to select the proper version branch for your usage – will you be using the stable version or a more advanced yet potentially less stable one? After downloading the source and configuring the compilation process by enabling or disabling features and modules such as SSL, GeoIP, and more, we compiled the application and installed it on the system in the directory of your choice. We created a unit service file and modified the system boot sequence to schedule the service to be started.

From this point on, NGINX is installed on your server and automatically starts with the system. Your web server is functional, though it does not yet answer the most basic functionality – serving a website. The first step toward hosting a website will be to prepare a suitable configuration file. The next chapter will cover...