On this article we will show you how to install Nginx on CentOS 8 operating system.
Introduction
Beside Apache Web server, Nginx is one of the most popular web servers which is often used to handle the load of some of the largest sites on the Internet. Nginx pronounced “engine x” is an open-source, high-performance HTTP and reverse proxy server. It can be used as a standalone web server, load balancer, content cache, and reverse proxy for HTTP and non-HTTP servers.
Compared to Apache, Nginx can handle a much large number of concurrent connections and has a smaller memory footprint per connection. On this tutorial, we will learn how to install Nginx on CentOS 8 operating system.
Nginx installation on CentOS 8
Prerequisite
Before we are starting Nginx installation on CentOS 8, we need to prepare our environment firest. Here are the prerequisite of Nginx installation on CentOS 8 :
- CentOS 8 System with sufficient disk space
- Non-root user with
sudoprivileges - Active firewall installed on server
- There is no Apache or any other process running on port 80 or 443
The Nginx installation process will be consisting of several steps as mentioned below :
A more detailed explanation will be described in the following sub-chapters.
1. Install NginX Web Server on CentOS 8
In order to install Nginx on CentOS 8, we’ll use the dnf package manager, which is the new default package manager on CentOS 8.
$ sudo dnf install nginx
Output :
[ramans@localhost ~]$ sudo dnf install nginx CentOS-8 - AppStream 43 kB/s | 5.8 MB 02:17 CentOS-8 - Base 168 kB/s | 2.2 MB 00:13 CentOS-8 - Extras 1.4 kB/s | 8.1 kB 00:05 Dependencies resolved. ========================================================================================================= Package Arch Version Repository Size ========================================================================================================= Installing: nginx x86_64 1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82 AppStream 570 k Installing dependencies: nginx-all-modules noarch 1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82 AppStream 23 k nginx-filesystem noarch 1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82 AppStream 24 k nginx-mod-http-image-filter x86_64 1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82 AppStream 35 k nginx-mod-http-perl x86_64 1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82 AppStream 45 k nginx-mod-http-xslt-filter x86_64 1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82 AppStream 33 k nginx-mod-mail x86_64 1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82 AppStream 64 k nginx-mod-stream x86_64 1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82 AppStream 85 k Enabling module streams: nginx 1.14 Transaction Summary ========================================================================================================= Install 8 Packages Total download size: 881 k Installed size: 2.0 M Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: (1/8): nginx-filesystem-1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.noarch.rpm 3.3 kB/s | 24 kB 00:07 (2/8): nginx-all-modules-1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.noarch.rpm 3.1 kB/s | 23 kB 00:07 (3/8): nginx-mod-http-image-filter-1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82. 123 kB/s | 35 kB 00:00 (4/8): nginx-mod-http-perl-1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64.r 115 kB/s | 45 kB 00:00 (5/8): nginx-mod-http-xslt-filter-1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x 117 kB/s | 33 kB 00:00 (6/8): nginx-mod-mail-1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64.rpm 2.3 kB/s | 64 kB 00:27 (7/8): nginx-1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64.rpm 16 kB/s | 570 kB 00:35 (8/8): nginx-mod-stream-1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64.rpm 3.0 kB/s | 85 kB 00:28 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 23 kB/s | 881 kB 00:37 . . . Installed: nginx-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64 nginx-all-modules-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.noarch nginx-filesystem-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.noarch nginx-mod-http-image-filter-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64 nginx-mod-http-perl-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64 nginx-mod-http-xslt-filter-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64 nginx-mod-mail-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64 nginx-mod-stream-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.x86_64 Complete!
After the installation is finished, we have to enable and start the Nginx service, by submitting following command line :
$ sudo systemctl enable nginx $ sudo systemctl start nginx $ sudo systemctl status nginx
Output will be as shown below :
2. Adjusting Firewall Rules
On our system, we have enabled firewalld firewall, so we have to adjust the firewall settings in order to allow external connections on your Nginx web server, which runs on port 80 by default.
On this stage we will permanently enable HTTP connections on port 80. To perform this task, we will do the following command lines :
$ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http $ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --list-all $ sudo firewall-cmd --reload
Output :
[ramans@localhost ~]$ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http success [ramans@localhost ~]$ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --list-all public target: default icmp-block-inversion: no interfaces: sources: services: cockpit dhcpv6-client http ssh ports: protocols: masquerade: no forward-ports: source-ports: icmp-blocks: rich rules: [ramans@localhost ~]$ sudo firewall-cmd --reload success
On current situation, our Nginx server is fully installed and ready to be accessed by external visitors.
3. Testing Web Server
Now, we can test our Nginx installation, by opening http://<ip_address_or_hostname> in web browser. You should see the default Nginx welcome page, which should look like the image below.
Conclusion
In this short tutorial, we’ve learnt how to install and set up Nginx, a high-performance web server and reverse proxy. I hope this article would be helpful.
