nginx on Mac OS

default

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;

    #access_log  logs/host.access.log  main;

    location / {
        root   html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

    #error_page  404              /404.html;

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    #
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   html;
    }
}

default-ssl

server {
    listen       443;
    server_name  localhost;

    ssl                  on;
    ssl_certificate      server.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key  server.key;

    ssl_session_timeout  5m;

    ssl_protocols  SSLv2 SSLv3 TLSv1;
    ssl_ciphers  HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;

    location / {
        root   html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }
}

new-site

server {
    listen       8081;
    server_name  localhost;

    location / {
        root   /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/YOUR/WEB_RESOURCES;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }
    
    error_page  404              /404.html;

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   html;
    }
}

NGINX.md

NGINX

Set up nginx on Mac OS

Installation

Install nginx with Homebrew:

brew install nginx

Start nginx as a brew service:

brew services start nginx

nginx will now run in background and seemlessly start with Mac OS.

Head up to http://localhost:8080, you should see the default nginx start page.

Configuration

this content was greatly inspired by this gist

Create sites-{enabled,available}

Create the sites-enabled and sites-available directories

mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-{enabled,available}

Tell nginx to use all servers defined in the sites-enabled directory by adding this line to nginx.conf

http {
    # a lot of default content set by nginx
    ...

    # add the following line
    include sites-enabled/*;
}

Create default configuration

Create 2 default configurations, default and default-ssl:

1. sites-available/default: paste the default file content
2. sites-available/default-ssl: paste the default-ssl file content

⚠️ do not use the .conf extension for server block files; for some reason when symlinking, nginx can't find the files.

Enable these configurations (optional):

cd /usr/local/etc/nginx
ln -s sites-enabled/ sites-available/{default, default-ssl}

Create a server block for the new site

Copy the default nginx settings into a new server block for the new site:

cp sites-available/default sites-available/my-new-site

Change the port for the new server block. Make sure to choose a non-root port; root ports are ranging from 1 to 1024. It's a good practice since it will allow the server to run without using sudo.

# in my-new-site
...
listen       8081;
...

Enable the new server by symlinking the conf in sites-available/ to sites-enabled/. This "symlink" convention is basically how all nginx configuration works. Enable/disable servers at wish. It's pretty simple.:

ln -s sites-enabled/ sites-available/my-new-site

Head up to the new site http://localhost:8081, you should see nginx starting page ☕️

Wiring it up

Now you need to point the server to where the web content actually is. In the new server block, define the location of the root html file

server {
    ...
    location / {
        root   /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/NEW_SITE/WEB_RESOURCES;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }
    ...
}

Now head up to http://localhost:8081, you should see the real site 🚀

Troubleshooting

Normally you don't need to restart nginx when modifying a server block. However, if you do need to restart nginx:

brew services restart nginx

Check that nginx.conf (and enabled server blocks, since they are included in the conf) are correctly configured:

$ nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful