How to stop nginx

Beginner’s Guide

This guide gives a basic introduction to nginx and describes some simple tasks that can be done with it. It is supposed that nginx is already installed on the reader’s machine. If it is not, see the Installing nginx page. This guide describes how to start and stop nginx, and reload its configuration, explains the structure of the configuration file and describes how to set up nginx to serve out static content, how to configure nginx as a proxy server, and how to connect it with a FastCGI application.

nginx has one master process and several worker processes. The main purpose of the master process is to read and evaluate configuration, and maintain worker processes. Worker processes do actual processing of requests. nginx employs event-based model and OS-dependent mechanisms to efficiently distribute requests among worker processes. The number of worker processes is defined in the configuration file and may be fixed for a given configuration or automatically adjusted to the number of available CPU cores (see worker_processes).

Starting, Stopping, and Reloading Configuration

Where signal may be one of the following:

For example, to stop nginx processes with waiting for the worker processes to finish serving current requests, the following command can be executed:

This command should be executed under the same user that started nginx.

Changes made in the configuration file will not be applied until the command to reload configuration is sent to nginx or it is restarted. To reload configuration, execute:

Once the master process receives the signal to reload configuration, it checks the syntax validity of the new configuration file and tries to apply the configuration provided in it. If this is a success, the master process starts new worker processes and sends messages to old worker processes, requesting them to shut down. Otherwise, the master process rolls back the changes and continues to work with the old configuration. Old worker processes, receiving a command to shut down, stop accepting new connections and continue to service current requests until all such requests are serviced. After that, the old worker processes exit.

For getting the list of all running nginx processes, the ps utility may be used, for example, in the following way:

For more information on sending signals to nginx, see Controlling nginx.

Configuration File’s Structure

nginx consists of modules which are controlled by directives specified in the configuration file. Directives are divided into simple directives and block directives. A simple directive consists of the name and parameters separated by spaces and ends with a semicolon ( ; ). A block directive has the same structure as a simple directive, but instead of the semicolon it ends with a set of additional instructions surrounded by braces ( < and >). If a block directive can have other directives inside braces, it is called a context (examples: events, http, server, and location).

The rest of a line after the # sign is considered a comment.

Serving Static Content

An important web server task is serving out files (such as images or static HTML pages). You will implement an example where, depending on the request, files will be served from different local directories: /data/www (which may contain HTML files) and /data/images (containing images). This will require editing of the configuration file and setting up of a server block inside the http block with two location blocks.

First, create the /data/www directory and put an index.html file with any text content into it and create the /data/images directory and place some images in it.

Next, open the configuration file. The default configuration file already includes several examples of the server block, mostly commented out. For now comment out all such blocks and start a new server block:

Generally, the configuration file may include several server blocks distinguished by ports on which they listen to and by server names. Once nginx decides which server processes a request, it tests the URI specified in the request’s header against the parameters of the location directives defined inside the server block.

Add the following location block to the server block:

Next, add the second location block:

It will be a match for requests starting with /images/ ( location / also matches such requests, but has shorter prefix).

The resulting configuration of the server block should look like this:

To apply the new configuration, start nginx if it is not yet started or send the reload signal to the nginx’s master process, by executing:

Setting Up a Simple Proxy Server

One of the frequent uses of nginx is setting it up as a proxy server, which means a server that receives requests, passes them to the proxied servers, retrieves responses from them, and sends them to the clients.

We will configure a basic proxy server, which serves requests of images with files from the local directory and sends all other requests to a proxied server. In this example, both servers will be defined on a single nginx instance.

First, define the proxied server by adding one more server block to the nginx’s configuration file with the following contents:

This will be a simple server that listens on the port 8080 (previously, the listen directive has not been specified since the standard port 80 was used) and maps all requests to the /data/up1 directory on the local file system. Create this directory and put the index.html file into it. Note that the root directive is placed in the server context. Such root directive is used when the location block selected for serving a request does not include its own root directive.

Next, use the server configuration from the previous section and modify it to make it a proxy server configuration. In the first location block, put the proxy_pass directive with the protocol, name and port of the proxied server specified in the parameter (in our case, it is http://localhost:8080 ):

We will modify the second location block, which currently maps requests with the /images/ prefix to the files under the /data/images directory, to make it match the requests of images with typical file extensions. The modified location block looks like this:

. The corresponding requests will be mapped to the /data/images directory.

When nginx selects a location block to serve a request it first checks location directives that specify prefixes, remembering location with the longest prefix, and then checks regular expressions. If there is a match with a regular expression, nginx picks this location or, otherwise, it picks the one remembered earlier.

The resulting configuration of a proxy server will look like this:

To apply new configuration, send the reload signal to nginx as described in the previous sections.

There are many more directives that may be used to further configure a proxy connection.

Setting Up FastCGI Proxying

nginx can be used to route requests to FastCGI servers which run applications built with various frameworks and programming languages such as PHP.

This will set up a server that will route all requests except for requests for static images to the proxied server operating on localhost:9000 through the FastCGI protocol.

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9 Popular Nginx Commands You Should Know

Nginx is one of the most popular web servers in the world. So whether you’re currently using it or not, chances are, if you’re a web developer chances are you’ll likely come in contact with it at some point. Therefore there are a few important Nginx commands you should be aware of in order to get familiar with the basics of this web server.

I this guide we’re going to go over what these popular Nginx commands are, how to use them, and what each one does.

Popular Nginx commands

Reference the following list of popular commands if you ever need a quick reminder on how to use a certain command or what it does. Remember, if you aren’t a root user, you’ll need to sudo each command in order for them to properly work.

Start Nginx

Starting Nginx is very simple. Just use the following command:

If you’re using a systemd based version such as Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS and above, use systemctl within the command, like so:

Example response:

Stop Nginx

Stopping Nginx will kill all system processes quickly. This will terminate Nginx even if there are open connections. In order to do so, run one of the following commands:

Example response:

This command can still, however, take some time on busy servers. Therefore, if you want Nginx to stop even faster, you can also use:

Quit Nginx

Quitting Nginx is very similar to stopping it however it does so gracefully which means it will finish serving open connections before shutting down. To quit Nginx, use one of the following commands:

Restart Nginx

Restarting Nginx basically performs a stop then a start. Use one of the following commands to run an Nginx restart:

Example response:

Reload Nginx

Reload is a bit different from restart in that, again, it is more gracefully. According to Nginx, reload is defined as «start the new worker process with a new configuration, gracefully shut down old worker processes.». You can reload Nginx by using one of the following commands:

Example response:

View server status

Check what the current status of your Nginx web server is with one of the following commands:

Example response:

Test Nginx configuration

You can test your Nginx server’s configuration file before restarting or reloading it completely. This helps prevent any unforeseen errors which can cause your website to gown down. To do this there are two separate commands you can use, both return the same information:

Or use one of the following:

Example response:

Check Nginx version

There are also two different ways to check your Nginx version. Both are fairly similar but one shows a little more information than the other. Use one of the following Nginx commands to print the Nginx version:

Use the following command to print the Nginx version, compiler version and configure parameters.

Show command help

If you’d like a quick reference guide of the commands available directly from within the terminal, use one of the following help commands:

Summary

This Nginx commands shown in this article are a few of the most popular ones. There do exist a few other parameters however these aren’t used nearly as much. Reference this guide whenever you’re stuck for an Nginx command and hopefully, you’ll find the one you need.

How to Create an Nginx Virtual Host (AKA Server Blocks)

What is a virtual host? A virtual host is an Apache term, however, is commonly used by Nginx users as well. The proper term for Nginx is server block. Both of these words have the same meaning which is basically the feature of being able to host…

Enabling the Nginx Directory Index Listing

If you’re using Nginx as a web server and want to display an Nginx directory index listing when navigating to a particular directory, then you have a couple of options. One way to achieve this is through the use of an index file (index.html)…

Using the Nginx add_header Directive

What is the Nginx add_header directive? The Nginx add_header directive allows you to define an arbitrary response header and value to be included in all response codes, which are equal to 200, 201, 204, 206, 301, 302, 303, 304, or 307. This can be…

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Nginx Commands You Should Know

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Nginx pronounced “engine x” is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP and reverse proxy server responsible for handling the load of some of the largest sites on the Internet. It can be used as a standalone web server, and as a reverse proxy for Apache and other web servers.

If you are a developer or system administrator, chances are that you’re dealing with Nginx on a regular basis.

In this guide, we will go over the most important and frequently used Nginx commands, including starting, stopping, and restarting Nginx.

Before You Begin #

Starting Nginx #

Starting Nginx is pretty simple. Just run the following command:

On success, the command doesn’t produce any output.

If you are running a Linux distribution without systemd to start Nginx type:

Instead of manually starting the Nginx service, it is recommended to set it to start on system boot:

Stopping Nginx #

Stopping Nginx quickly shuts down all Nginx worker processes even if there are open connections.

To stop Nginx, run one of the following commands:

Restarting Nginx #

The restart option is a quick way of stopping and then starting the Nginx server.

Use one of the following commands to perform an Nginx restart :

This is the command that you will probably use the most frequently.

Reloading Nginx #

You need to reload or restart Nginx whenever you make changes to its configuration.

The reload command loads the new configuration, starts new worker processes with the new configuration, and gracefully shuts down old worker processes.

To reload Nginx, use one of the following commands:

Testing Nginx Configuration #

Whenever you make changes to the Nginx server’s configuration file, it is a good idea to test the configuration before restarting or reloading the service.

Use the following command to test the Nginx configuration for any syntax or system errors:

The output will look like below:

If there are any errors, the command prints a detailed message.

Viewing Nginx Status #

To check the status of the Nginx service, use the following command:

The output will look something like this:

Checking Nginx Version #

Sometimes you may need to know the version of your Nginx so you can debug an issue or determine whether a certain feature is available.

You can check your Nginx version by running:

Conclusion #

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment.

How to Start, Stop, or Restart Nginx

John on July 27, 2021

A common task when managing an Nginx installation is to start, stop and restart the service. For example, if changes have been made to a server block Nginx will need to be restarted for those changes to take effect.

Depending on your version of Linux, Nginx can be started, stopped and reloaded using either the systemctl or SysVinit utilities which is what we will learn in this tutorial.

Before you begin you will need sudo privileges on your server.

Here is a list of the argument that can be used with both the systemctl and SysVinit to manage Nginx:

Restart Nginx with systemctl

If you have made changes to the Nginx config file or any server blocks, it is worth testing for errors before restarting Nginx using the following command.

Now you can restart the Nginx service with the following command:

If everything went ok the terminal won’t provide any feedback.

Start or Stop Nginx with systemctl

To start or stop Nginx from the command line using systemctl, use the following commands.

Start, Stop or Restart Nginx with SysVinit

If you are using old versions of CentOS, Debian or Ubuntu you may need to manage Nginx using SysVinit, which is initiated using the service keyword.

Top 12 Nginx Commands Every Linux Admin Should Know

Table of Contents

In this article, I will take you through top 10 Nginx commands which is important for every Linux Admin using Nginx Server. As per Nginx Wiki, NGINX is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server and reverse 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. Unlike traditional servers, NGINX doesn’t rely on threads to handle requests. Instead it uses a much more scalable event-driven (asynchronous) architecture. This architecture uses small, but more importantly, predictable amounts of memory under load. Even if you don’t expect to handle thousands of simultaneous requests, you can still benefit from NGINX’s high-performance and small memory footprint. NGINX scales in all directions: from the smallest VPS all the way up to large clusters of servers.

What is Nginx

Nginx is an Open Source web server and uses a non-threaded, event driven architecture.

Nginx Commands

It is worth mentioning here that I have created and used a user test in this article which is having sudo access to run all below mentioned commands. You can refer to Add User to Sudoers on Ubuntu article to check how to add user into sudoers file. You can also create any user and provide sudo access to run all the below nginx commands as per your requirement.

1. Install Nginx on Ubuntu

To install Nginx on Ubuntu, you need to use sudo apt-get install nginx command. This command will check the availability of Nginx package in the repository and then download and install it.

2. Check Nginx Version

3. Test Nginx default Config

4. Start Nginx Service

To start Nginx Service, you need to use sudo systemctl start nginx or sudo service nginx start command.

5. Check Nginx Status

To check nginx status after doing any changes, you need to use sudo systemctl status nginx or sudo service nginx status command.

6. Stop Nginx Service

To stop nginx service, you need to use sudo systemctl stop nginx or sudo service nginx stop command.

7. How to Restart Nginx Service

8. How to Perform Nginx Test Reload

To reload nginx service, you need to use sudo systemctl reload nginx command or sudo service reload nginx command.

9. Check Nginx Configuration

10. Log Rotate Nginx Files

If you want to log rotate Nginx files, you can use sudo service nginx rotate command.

11. Upgrade Nginx

To upgrade nginx service, you need to use sudo service nginx upgrade command.

12. Show Nginx Help

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