Starts nginx in the current directory, and tails the log output. When the script exits, nginx is also closed. By default it starts on port 8000, but it will try more ports if that isn't available. Start on a different port by passing it as the first param.

start-nginx

#!/bin/bash
errcho() { echo "$@" 1>&2; }
stop() {
	errcho
	echo "Stopped"
	if [[ $started -eq 1 ]]; then
		pid=$(< $FILE_PID)
		errcho "Killing nginx $pid"
		kill $pid
	else
		errcho "$nginx_output"
	fi
	if [[ $temp ]]; then
		rm -rf $temp
	fi
	trap - EXIT
	exit 0;
}

trap stop EXIT

port_is_free() {
	port=$1
	(echo "" >/dev/tcp/127.0.0.1/$port) >/dev/null 2>&1
	if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
		return 1
	fi
	return 0
}

find_port() {
	i=${1:-8000}
	while :
	do
		port_is_free $i
		retval=$?
		if [[ $retval -eq 0 ]]; then
			echo $i
			exit 0
		fi
		errcho "Port $i in use, checking next"
		i=$((i+1))
	done
}

# temp
temp=$(mktemp -d)

FILE_ERROR=$temp/error.log
FILE_ACCESS=$temp/access.log
FILE_PID=$temp/nginx.pid
DIR_ROOT=$(pwd)
PORT=$(find_port $1)

config=$(cat <<EOF
error_log $FILE_ERROR;
worker_processes auto;
pid $FILE_PID;

events {
        worker_connections 768;
}

http {
        sendfile on;
        tcp_nopush on;

        include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
        default_type application/octet-stream;

        access_log $FILE_ACCESS;

        gzip on;
        gzip_comp_level 6;
        gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

        server {
                listen $PORT;
                root $DIR_ROOT;
                autoindex on;
        }
}
EOF
)

errcho "Starting nginx to serve files in $DIR_ROOT on port $PORT"
echo "$config">$temp/nginx.conf

# start and get pid
started=0
nginx_output=$(nginx -c $temp/nginx.conf 2>&1) || stop;
errcho "Started!"
started=1
# tail the log files
tail -qf $FILE_ERROR $FILE_ACCESS

# ok, tail is finished. this calls the trap above