Wiki > Userland Nginx
Setup
Intro
Nginx is a web server that will allow you to host either your own website, or make your files available via HTTP. In the example below, we will display a file listing for the files in your /home/user/files directory, which will be password protected with multiple usernames and passwords that you set.
A random port number between 10000 and 32767 is needed and will be used to access your nginx server once setup is complete. The port number 16745 has automatically been generated and will be used throughout this article, but can be changed if needed.
Main configuration file
- Create the nginx config and temp directories.
mkdir ~/.config/nginx ~/.config/nginx/includes ~/.config/nginx/tmp - Create the configuration file.
touch ~/.config/nginx/nginx.conf - Create the file that errors will be displayed in.
touch ~/.config/nginx/error.log - Create the file that will log the information about those who access your webserver.
touch ~/.config/nginx/access.log - Copy the contents of the box below into the nginx.conf file.
nano ~/.config/nginx/nginx.conf
nginx.conf
error_log /home/user/.config/nginx/error.log info;
pid /dev/null;
events { worker_connections 128; }
http {
include mimes.conf; #for custom file types
default_type application/octet-stream;
access_log /home/user/.config/nginx/access.log combined;
client_body_temp_path /home/user/.config/nginx/tmp/client_body;
proxy_temp_path /home/user/.config/nginx/tmp/proxy;
fastcgi_temp_path /home/user/.config/nginx/tmp/fastcgi;
uwsgi_temp_path /home/user/.config/nginx/tmp/uwsgi;
scgi_temp_path /home/user/.config/nginx/tmp/scgi;
server_tokens off;
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 4;
output_buffers 1 32k;
postpone_output 1460;
server {
listen 16745 default; #IPv4
listen [::]:16745 default; #IPv6
autoindex on; #this is the file list
index index.php index.html;
# path you want to share
root /home/user/files/;
# file with user:pass info
auth_basic_user_file /home/user/.config/nginx/htpasswd.conf;
auth_basic "Personal file server";
# Any extra configuration
include /home/user/.config/nginx/includes/*.conf;
}
}
File extension support
- Create the file that will provide support for different file extensions.
touch ~/.config/nginx/mimes.conf - Copy the contents of the box below into the newly created mimes.conf file.
nano ~/.config/nginx/mimes.conf
Mimes.conf
types {
text/html html htm shtml;
text/css css;
text/xml xml;
image/gif gif;
image/jpeg jpeg jpg;
application/x-javascript js;
application/atom+xml atom;
application/rss+xml rss;
font/opentype otf;
text/mathml mml;
text/plain txt;
text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor jad;
text/vnd.wap.wml wml;
text/x-component htc;
image/png png;
image/tiff tif tiff;
image/vnd.wap.wbmp wbmp;
image/x-icon ico;
image/x-jng jng;
image/x-ms-bmp bmp;
image/svg+xml svg;
application/java-archive jar war ear;
application/mac-binhex40 hqx;
application/msword doc;
application/pdf pdf;
application/postscript ps eps ai;
application/rtf rtf;
application/vnd.ms-excel xls;
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint ppt;
application/vnd.wap.wmlc wmlc;
application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml xhtml;
application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml kml;
application/vnd.google-earth.kmz kmz;
application/x-7z-compressed 7z;
application/x-cocoa cco;
application/x-java-archive-diff jardiff;
application/x-java-jnlp-file jnlp;
application/x-makeself run;
application/x-perl pl pm;
application/x-pilot prc pdb;
application/x-rar-compressed rar;
application/x-redhat-package-manager rpm;
application/x-sea sea;
application/x-shockwave-flash swf;
application/x-stuffit sit;
application/x-tcl tcl tk;
application/x-x509-ca-cert der pem crt;
application/x-xpinstall xpi;
application/zip zip;
application/octet-stream bin exe dll;
application/octet-stream deb;
application/octet-stream dmg;
application/octet-stream eot;
application/octet-stream iso img;
application/octet-stream msi msp msm;
audio/midi mid midi kar;
audio/mpeg mp3;
audio/x-realaudio ra;
video/3gpp 3gpp 3gp;
video/mpeg mpeg mpg;
video/quicktime mov;
video/x-flv flv;
video/x-mng mng;
video/x-ms-asf asx asf;
video/x-ms-wmv wmv;
video/x-msvideo avi;
application/x-bittorrent torrent;
}
Authentication
-
Create the authentication file.
touch ~/.config/nginx/htpasswd.conf -
Place authentication information into the file. You can use this command to add a username and password to your htpasswd.conf file. Replace
usernameandpasswordin the command with the username and password you want to add:echo 'username:'$(crypt password) >> ~/.config/nginx/htpasswd.conf
If you want to manually edit the file, the format is:
user1:passhash
user2:passhash
Replace userN with the username you desire, and passhash with a crypt version of that username's password. (Hashes may be generated using the crypt command: crypt password).
Starting the webserver
-
Create the file that will start the webserver.
touch ~/.config/nginx/start -
Make the start file able to be executed.
chmod +x ~/.config/nginx/start -
Place the contents of the box below into the start file.
nano ~/.config/nginx/start#!/bin/bash # start /usr/sbin/nginx -c ~/.config/nginx/nginx.conf &> /dev/null
From then on, the server can be started using ~/.config/nginx/start as a command.
Starting the webserver on boot
Add the start command to cron to have nginx automatically start if the server is rebooted. Run crontab -e and add the following line
@reboot ~/.config/nginx/start
Accessing it
You will now be able to access your files folder using the username and password you defined from http://server.whatbox.ca:16745/
Stopping the webserver
Kill the process. pkill -f nginx/nginx.conf
SSL (optional)
To access your webserver securely with SSL you will need to create a self-signed certificate and update nginx.conf.
- Create key files. All requested custom information can be left blank.
openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -out ~/.config/nginx/server.crt -keyout ~/.config/nginx/server.key - Edit
nginx.confand add the following to theserver {block
listen 16745 ssl; # Replace existing line
listen [::]:16745 ssl; # Replace existing line
# ssl on;
ssl_certificate /home/user/.config/nginx/server.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /home/user/.config/nginx/server.key;
Caveat
The Chrome browser revokes self-signed certificates every time a valid certificate is encountered. This can cause bugs in web applications hosted on your webserver when other tabs have Whatbox pages actively loaded. We recommend using a different browser for your self-signed certificates if this affects you.
PHP (optional)
-
Create the configuration directory.
mkdir ~/.config/php-fpm2 -
Create the configuration file.
touch ~/.config/php-fpm2/conf -
Copy the contents below into the configuration file. Be sure to delete any spaces at the start of each line to prevent startup errors.
nano ~/.config/php-fpm2/conf[global] daemonize = yes error_log = /home/user/.config/php-fpm2/error.log [www] listen = /home/user/.config/php-fpm2/socket listen.owner = user listen.group = user listen.mode = 0600 pm = dynamic pm.max_children = 20 pm.start_servers = 1 pm.min_spare_servers = 1 pm.max_spare_servers = 5 php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 4G -
Start php-fpm:
php-fpm --fpm-config ~/.config/php-fpm2/conf -
In your nginx configuration directory, create fastcgi_params:
touch ~/.config/nginx/fastcgi_params -
Copy the contents below into the fastcgi_params file.
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name; fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string; fastcgi_param REQUEST_METHOD $request_method; fastcgi_param CONTENT_TYPE $content_type; fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH $content_length; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name; fastcgi_param REQUEST_URI $request_uri; fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_URI $document_uri; fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $document_root; fastcgi_param SERVER_PROTOCOL $server_protocol; fastcgi_param GATEWAY_INTERFACE CGI/1.1; fastcgi_param SERVER_SOFTWARE WebServer; fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR $remote_addr; fastcgi_param REMOTE_PORT $remote_port; fastcgi_param SERVER_ADDR $server_addr; fastcgi_param SERVER_PORT $server_port; fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $server_name; fastcgi_connect_timeout 60; fastcgi_send_timeout 180; fastcgi_read_timeout 180; fastcgi_buffer_size 128k; fastcgi_buffers 8 256k; fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 256k; fastcgi_temp_file_write_size 256k; fastcgi_intercept_errors on; -
Create the ~/.config/nginx/includes/php.conf file:
touch ~/.config/nginx/includes/php.confand add the following contents to it:location ~ \.php$ { include fastcgi_params; fastcgi_pass unix:/home/user/.config/php-fpm2/socket; } -
Restart nginx to reflect the new configuration changes:
pkill -f nginx/nginx.conf && ~/.config/nginx/start
WebDAV (optional)
-
Copy the contents of the box below into the nginx.conf file right below
root /home/user/files/.nano ~/.config/nginx/nginx.conf# enable webdav access for shared path dav_methods PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE; dav_ext_methods PROPFIND OPTIONS; create_full_put_path on; dav_access group:rw all:r; -
Restart nginx to reflect the new configuration changes:
pkill -f nginx/nginx.conf && ~/.config/nginx/start -
You can now connect to your WebDAV app using the information in the box below.
Protocol: WebDAV Address: server.whatbox.ca Username: (Previously set up username) Password: (Previously set up password) Port (Advanced): 16745
Reverse Proxies
Reverse proxies will allow you to proxy a page so as to allow you to have SSL on an app's web interface that normally wouldn't support SSL. You will need to have setup a self-signed SSL certificate as described above.
server {
listen <NewPort> default; #IPv4
listen [::]:<NewPort> default; #IPv6
ssl on;
ssl_certificate /home/user/.config/nginx/server.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /home/user/.config/nginx/server.key;
location /
{
proxy_pass http://server.whatbox.ca:<AppPort>;
}
}
Replace <NewPort> with the port you want to access the app on (e.g. https://server.whatbox.ca:<NewPort>). Do not leave the <> symbols.
Replace <AppPort> with the port that your app's web interface already runs on. Do not leave the <> symbols.