nginx

Start server with the default configuration file

$ nginx

$ nginx -c [configuration_file]

$ nginx -c [configuration_file] -p [prefix/for/relative/paths]

$ nginx -t

$ nginx -s reload

nginx [-?hvVtTqg file] [-s signal] [-c file] [-p prefix] [-e file]

-?
    -?: Show help message.

-h
    -h: Same as -?, show help message.

-v
    -v: Show version information.

-V
    -V: Show version and configure options.

-t
    -t: Test the configuration file syntax.

-T
    -T: Test the configuration file syntax and dump it.

-q
    -q: Suppress non-error messages during configuration testing.

-s signal
    -s signal: Send a signal to the master process. Signals can be stop, reload, reopen, or quit.

-c file
    -c file: Use an alternate configuration file instead of the default.

-p prefix
    -p prefix: Set the prefix path for configuration files and other relative paths.

-e file
    -e file: Use an alternate error log file.

-g file
    -g file: Set global directives out of the configuration file.

nginx (pronounced "engine-x") is a high-performance HTTP server, reverse proxy, and IMAP/POP3 proxy server. It is known for its stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption.

It's designed to handle a large number of concurrent connections efficiently. Nginx employs an event-driven, asynchronous, non-blocking architecture, which makes it well-suited for serving static content, load balancing, and acting as a reverse proxy in front of application servers like Apache, Gunicorn, or Node.js.

Nginx's configuration is typically managed through a single configuration file, often located at `/etc/nginx/nginx.conf`, and/or files in `/etc/nginx/conf.d/`. These files define how Nginx handles incoming requests, maps them to specific content, and interacts with backend servers.

Because of its speed, scalability and wide availability, it is one of the most popular webservers on the internet.

Nginx requires root privileges to bind to ports below 1024 by default. The configuration file syntax can be complex and requires careful attention to detail.

stop: Immediately stops the server.
reload: Reloads the configuration file without downtime.
reopen: Reopens log files.
quit: Gracefully shuts down the server, allowing existing connections to complete.

Nginx was first publicly released in 2004 by Igor Sysoev. It was initially created to solve the C10K problem, a challenge of handling 10,000 concurrent connections on a single server. Over time, it has gained widespread adoption due to its performance and flexibility, becoming one of the leading web servers globally.

apache2(8), systemctl(1)