The nginx: unrecognized service error means the startup scripts need to be created.

nginz_cmds

The nginx: unrecognized service error means the startup scripts need to be created.
Fortunately the startup scripts have already been written.

We can fetch them with wget and set them up following these steps:

# Download nginx startup script
wget -O init-deb.sh http://library.linode.com/assets/660-init-deb.sh

# Move the script to the init.d directory & make executable
sudo mv init-deb.sh /etc/init.d/nginx
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/nginx

# Add nginx to the system startup
sudo /usr/sbin/update-rc.d -f nginx defaults
Now we can control nginx using:

sudo service nginx stop 
sudo service nginx start 
sudo service nginx restart
sudo service nginx reload