Nginx is an open source web server with a strong focus on high concurrency, performance, and low memory usage. It is widely used for serving static content such as HTML, CSS, images, and videos. In this tutorial, we will take a look at how to install Nginx on Windows 10.
Before we begin, ensure that you have the following prerequisites:
To download Nginx, go to the official website at http://nginx.org/ and select the latest stable version of Nginx for Windows. Once you have selected the correct package, click on the link to download the zip file.
After downloading the zip file, extract it to a directory of your choice. We recommend extracting it to a simple directory such as c:\nginx for simplicity.
Once you have extracted the files, you will need to configure Nginx to run on your system. Open the conf/nginx.conf file in a text editor and make the following changes:
worker_processes 1;
http {
include mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
sendfile on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
server {
listen 80;
server_name localhost;
location / {
root html;
index index.html index.htm;
}
}
}
The worker_processes line defines the number of worker processes that Nginx will use. For simplicity, we set this to 1.
The http block contains the main configuration settings for Nginx, including the include directive for Mime types, keepalive_timeout, and more.
The server block defines the server settings for Nginx, including the listen directive for the loopback IP address and port 80, the server_name directive for the hostname, and the location block for serving static files.
To run Nginx, open a command prompt or PowerShell window and navigate to the c:\nginx directory where the extracted files are located. Run the command nginx.exe, which will start the Nginx server.
cd c:\nginx
nginx.exe
If the server starts up without any errors, you should see the following message:
nginx: [emerg] listen() to 127.0.0.1:80, backlog 511 failed (10013: An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions)
This indicates that Nginx is running and listening on the loopback IP address and port 80. You can now view the web server by opening a web browser and navigating to http://localhost.
In this tutorial, we covered the steps needed to install Nginx on Windows 10. Remember that Nginx is designed for Unix-based systems and may not perform as well on Windows. However, it is still a viable option for serving static files and can be useful for testing purposes.
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