Install Nginx on Mac OS from source (without brew)

install_nginx_macos_source.md

Install Nginx on Mac OS from source

no Homebrew required

1. Download Nginx

$ cd /usr/local/src
$ curl -OL http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz
$ tar -xvzf nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz && rm nginx-1.12.2.tar.gz

2. Download the PCRE library

The PCRE library distribution (version 4.4 — 8.41) needs to be downloaded from the PCRE site and extracted. The rest is done by nginx’s ./configure and make. PCRE is required for the http_rewrite_module, and also for regular expressions support in the location directive.

$ curl -OL https://ftp.pcre.org/pub/pcre/pcre-8.41.tar.gz
$ tar xvzf pcre-8.41.tar.gz && rm pcre-8.41.tar.gz

3. Configure Nginx

See the full list of ./configure options: http://nginx.org/en/docs/configure.html.

$ cd nginx-1.12.2/

Compile nginx without SSL support

$ ./configure --with-pcre=../pcre-8.41/ 

with SSL support

Download OpenSSL sources and extract:

$ curl -OL https://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-1.1.0.tar.gz
$ tar xvzf openssl-1.1.0.tar.gz && rm openssl-1.1.0.tar.gz 

Compile Nginx:

$ cd ../nginx-1.12.2/
$ ./configure --with-pcre=../pcre-8.41/ --with-http_ssl_module --with-openssl=/usr/local/src/openssl-1.1.0

4. Install Nginx

$ [sudo] make && make install

Add the nginx binary to $PATH:

export PATH="/usr/local/nginx/sbin:$PATH"

stable version of nginx when I used this article is 1.14.0

Thanks for putting this up man it was a huge help.

In the section of "with SSL support" ，you maybe spell openssl-1.1.0g.tar.gz wrong ,it should be openssl-1.1.0.tar.gz

This is great. Did you want to write about the other option with SSL Support where you point to an existing OpenSSL install?

how do you actually run nginx once this is all done? Everytime I try, it says "command not found"

how do you actually run nginx once this is all done? Everytime I try, it says "command not found"

sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx

great job. this solved my issue, thanks a lot.

Can I skip install with SSL support ?

When i try to install without with SSL support. I got this error

/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/make -f objs/Makefile
make[1]: Nothing to be done for `build'.
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/make -f objs/Makefile install
test -d '/usr/local/nginx' || mkdir -p '/usr/local/nginx'
test -d '/usr/local/nginx/sbin'
|| mkdir -p '/usr/local/nginx/sbin'
test ! -f '/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx'
|| mv '/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx'
'/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx.old'
cp objs/nginx '/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx'
cp: /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx: Permission denied
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
make: *** [install] Error 2

anyone have same problem like me ?

Can I skip install with SSL support ?

When i try to install without with SSL support. I got this error

/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/make -f objs/Makefile
make[1]: Nothing to be done for `build'.
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/make -f objs/Makefile install
test -d '/usr/local/nginx' || mkdir -p '/usr/local/nginx'
test -d '/usr/local/nginx/sbin'
|| mkdir -p '/usr/local/nginx/sbin'
test ! -f '/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx'
|| mv '/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx'
'/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx.old'
cp objs/nginx '/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx'
cp: /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx: Permission denied
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
make: *** [install] Error 2

anyone have same problem like me ?

use chown to give permission to folder ex: sudo chown -R [user] nginx

This was helpful. I've used it.

This helped, but how do i configure the nginx though, i tried updating "/usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf" its not taking effect.
Any suggestion?.

@henkosasih have you used "sudo"?

@sachinprabhuk please just this command to take your updated nginx.conf:
sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -t -c /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

sudo nginx -s reload

Also, use this command to check which conf your servers are using? default or your updated?
ps -ef|grep nginx

@henkosasih have you used "sudo"?
Personally I had to use sudo because I did not have access to the /usr/local folder

i dont have src folder in usr/local what should i do?

https://ftp.pcre.org/pub/pcre/pcre-8.41.tar.gz is no longer available. Use https://ftp.exim.org/pub/pcre/pcre-8.41.tar.gz instead.

Here's a one-liner that automatically uses the latest versions and includes the Nginx JavaScript module (njs):

• https://github.com/AnthumChris/nginx-njs-macos

when installing Nginx with sudo gives me this error, can anybody help me please:

/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/make -f objs/Makefile
cd ../pcre-8.41/
&& if [ -f Makefile ]; then /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/make distclean; fi
&& CC="cc" CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe "
./configure --disable-shared
/bin/sh: line 0: cd: ../pcre-8.41/: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [../pcre-8.41//Makefile] Error 1
make: *** [build] Error 2