How To Install nginx on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)

Status: Deprecated #

This article covers a version of Ubuntu that is no longer supported. If you are currently operate a server running Ubuntu 12.04, we highly recommend upgrading or migrating to a supported version of Ubuntu:

Upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04.
Upgrade from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04
Migrate the server data to a supported version

Reason:
Ubuntu 12.04 reached end of life (EOL) on April 28, 2017 and no longer receives security patches or updates. This guide is no longer maintained.
See Instead:
This guide might still be useful as a reference, but may not work on other Ubuntu releases. If available, we strongly recommend using a guide written for the version of Ubuntu you are using. You can use the search functionality at the top of the page to find a more recent version.

About nginx #

nginx is a high performance web server software. It is a much more flexible and lightweight program than apache.

Set Up #

The steps in this tutorial require the user to have root privileges. You can see how to set that up in the Initial Server Setup Tutorial in steps 3 and 4.

Step One—Install nginx #

To install nginx, open terminal and type in:

sudo apt-get install nginx

When prompted, say yes. nginx is now installed on your virtual private server.

Step Two—Start nginx #

nginx does not start on its own. To get nginx running on your VPS, type:

sudo service nginx start

Step Three—RESULTS: Confirm That nginx Has Started #

You can confirm that nginx has been installed as your web server by directing your browser to your IP address.
**You can run the following command to reveal your virtual server’s IP address.

ifconfig eth0 | grep inet | awk '{ print $2 }'

When you visit your IP address page in your browser, you will see the words, “Welcome to nginx”
You can see a screenshot of the utilitarian nginx welcome page here
To ensure that nginx will be up after reboots, it’s best to add it to the startup.
Type this command into terminal:

update-rc.d nginx defaults

You may see a message like:

System start/stop links for /etc/init.d/nginx already exist.

If that is the case, then nginx is set up to run on startup, and you are all set.
Congratulations! You have now installed nginx

See More #

Once you have installed nginx on your virtual private server, you can do a variety of things on your server such as Set Up Virtual Hosts or Create an SSL certificate for your site
By Etel Sverdlov