NGINX(8)

NAME
nginx - HTTP and reverse proxy server, mail proxy server

SYNOPSIS
nginx [-hqtvV?] [-c file] [-g directives] [-p prefix] [-s signal]

DESCRIPTION
The nginx (spelled “engine x”) is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server. The nginx is known for its high performance, stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption.

The options are as follows:

? | -h
    Print help.

-c file
    Use an alternative configuration file.

-g directives
    Set global configuration directives. See EXAMPLES for details.

-p prefix
    Set prefix path. Default value is %%PREFIX%%/etc/nginx.

-q  Suppress non-error messages during configuration testing.

-s signal
    Send signal to the master process. The argument signal can be one of: stop, quit, reopen, reload. The following table shows the corresponding system signals.

    stop
        SIGTERM
    quit
        SIGQUIT
    reopen
        SIGUSR1
    reload
        SIGHUP

-t  Don't run, just test the configuration file. The nginx checks configuration for correct syntax and then tries to open files referred in configuration.

-v  Print nginx version.

-V  Print nginx version, compiler version and configure script parameters.

SIGNALS
The master process of nginx can handle the following signals.

SIGINT, SIGTERM
    Shut down quickly.
SIGHUP
    Reload configuration, start the new worker process with a new configuration, gracefully shut down old worker processes.
SIGQUIT
    Shut down gracefully.
SIGUSR1
    Reopen log files.
SIGUSR2
    Upgrade nginx executable on the fly.
SIGWINCH
    Shut down gracefully worker processes.

While there's no need to explicitly control worker processes normally, they support some signals, too:

SIGTERM
    Shut down quickly.
SIGQUIT
    Shut down gracefully.
SIGUSR1
    Reopen log files.

DEBUGGING LOG
To enable a debugging log, reconfigure nginx to build with debugging:

    ./configure --with-debug ...

and then set the debug level of the error_log:

    error_log /path/to/log debug;

It is also possible to enable the debugging for some IP address:

    events {
    	debug_connection 127.0.0.1;
    }

FILES
%%NGINX_RUNDIR%%/nginx/nginx.pid
    Contains the process ID of the nginx listening for connections. The content of this file is not sensitive; it can be world-readable.
%%PREFIX%%/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
    Main configuration file.
%%NGINX_ERRORLOG%%
    Error log file.

EXIT STATUS
Exit status is 0 on success, or 1 if the command fails.

EXAMPLES

    nginx -t -c ~/mynginx.conf -g "pid %%NGINX_RUNDIR%%/mynginx.pid; worker_processes 2;"

Test configuration file ~/mynginx.conf with global directives for PID and quantity of worker processes.

SEE ALSO
nginx.conf(5)

HISTORY
Development of nginx started in 2002, with the first public release in 2004.

AUTHORS
Igor Sysoev <igor@sysoev.ru>

Documentation available on http://nginx.org/ and http://sysoev.ru/nginx/.

This manual page was written by Sergey A. Osokin <osa@FreeBSD.org.ru> as a result of compilation of many nginx documents all over the world.

BUGS
Report to mailing list <nginx@nginx.org> if you found one.