With little tweaking, it is possible to install the NGINX web server on macOS. This guide first explains how to get NGINX running, and then how to set up the file structure so that it's identical to the Linux-based version.
A little housekeeping
Before we install Nginx, we need to make sure that no other web server is running on macOS. To do this, we’ll stop Apache:
sudo apachectl stop
NOTE If Apache isn’t installed, this will obviously do nothing.
If you don't have it, install Homebrew
To install Nginx on macOS, we will need Homebrew. If you have not yet installed Homebrew, please follow this guide and do so before continuing.
Install and start Nginx
Once Homebrew is installed, run:
brew install nginx
Then, once Nginx has been installed, start it by running:
sudo nginx
To check that Nginx is correctly installed, and has started correctly, go to http://localhost:8080. You should see the default Nginx page.
NOTE If you are installing Nginx on a remote Mac, you’ll need to substitute the localhost in the above URL for the IP address of the remote Mac. For example, if you have installed Nginx on a Mac at 10.0.1.10, you’d type http://10.0.1.10:8080.
Change the listening port
By default, Nginx listens on port 8080 on Macs. In most circumstances, you will want it to listen on port 80 instead. Before we do this, we need to temporarily stop Nginx from running:
sudo nginx -s stop
Next, open the configuration file at /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:
nano /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
The server block in your /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf file should look as follows:
server {
listen 80;
server_name localhost;
Save your changes by pressing Ctrl + X, then Y, then Enter. Then restart Nginx:
sudo nginx
To test that the change worked, visit http://localhost. You should see the default Nginx page.
NOTE As before, if you have installed Nginx on a remote Mac, you’ll need to substitute the localhost in the above URL for the IP address of the remote Mac. For example, if you have installed Nginx on a Mac at 10.0.1.10, you’d type http://10.0.1.10.
Set up sites-available and sites-enabled
Next, we need to set up the traditional sites-enabled and sites-available folder structure:
mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-enabled
mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-available
cd /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-available
touch default.conf
cd /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-enabled
ln -s ../sites-available/default.conf
Having created this structure, we need to tell Nginx where to look for enabled sites. To do this, we’ll open /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf again:
nano /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
Then we need place the following line within the http block:
include /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*.conf;
Save your changes by pressing Ctrl + X, then Y, then Enter.
Set macOS to run Nginx when it starts
Finally, we need to tell macOS to run Nginx when it starts. To do this, we’ll create a blank file named homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ :
nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist
And paste the following into it (thanks to jimothyGator for the samples):
homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist#
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>homebrew.mxcl.nginx</string>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<false/>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/usr/local/opt/nginx/sbin/nginx</string>
<string>-g</string>
<string>daemon off;</string>
</array>
<key>WorkingDirectory</key>
<string>/usr/local</string>
</dict>
</plist>
Save your changes by pressing Ctrl + X, then Y, then Enter.
Set up your server blocks
Now you are ready to start creating server blocks in exactly the same way as you would in any other Nginx setup.
Hi there,
I followed the steps you gave all the way till the end, but then in the end, for some reason, I could not save the code in this file: homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons/
I get an error that says this: [ Error writing /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist: Permission denied ]
Can someone please tell me what I might be doing wrong?
Thanks
Hi Ruqia,
Can you tell me which version of macOS you are running? And have you tried adding sudo before nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist?
Charles
add sudo before nano like so:
sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist
You will have to enter your admin password. Then you can make your changes and save them.
After following the instructions on setting up sites-* and trying to sudo nginx -s reload got an error:
nginx: [emerg] open() "/usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default.conf" failed (2: No such file or directory) in /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:116
Created default.conf file in sites-available folder and after that I managed to start nginx.
Created file with: touch default.conf.
Hope I did everything right and it will help somebody.
This worked for me as expected. Thanks a lot for sharing