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Installing the Official NGINX OSS Package via Script

By Jay

Aug 7, 2023 | 5 minutes read

Tags: technical-tutorials, nginx, installation, infrastructure

If you run NGINX in production, install it from the official F5/NGINX repositories rather than your distribution’s package manager. The distro packages are fine for a lab, but they lag behind on security releases, and the module ecosystem assumes you’re running the official build.

Your options, in rough order of preference:

The official OSS package from the NGINX repositories
Your distribution’s package manager or a cloud image (AWS, Azure, GCP)
Building from source

The official package is maintained directly by the NGINX core team, so security patches land promptly instead of waiting on a distro backport. It follows the release schedule NGINX publishes, with LTS branches if you’d rather prioritize stability over new features. It’s 2-clause BSD licensed, it tracks the official documentation exactly, and third-party modules are built against it first because it’s the reference build.

That said, all three options work. Pick based on how much you care about staying current versus how much you enjoy compiling things.

NGINX documents the manual installation process well at their documentation site. But it’s a lot of steps to repeat by hand, because the docs have to cover every platform and scenario. Since my servers are either Debian-family or RHEL-family, I wrapped the whole thing in a script that detects the OS, adds the repo and signing key, and installs the package:

Please note that you should never run a script on your system without first reviewing it to ensure that it is doing what you expect it to do. I’ve tried to make this script as simple as possible, but you should always review any script before running it on your system.

#!/bin/bash

# Usage: This script installs NGINX on various Linux distributions
# Run it as root or with sudo privileges
# Usage: sudo ./install_nginx.sh

# Check if the script is run as root
if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
   echo "This script must be run as root"
   exit 1
fi

# Prompt the user to continue
read -p "This script will install NGINX on your system. Do you wish to continue? (y/n) " -n 1 -r
echo
if [[ ! $REPLY =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]
then
    exit 1
fi

# Function to install NGINX on CentOS/RHEL/Oracle Linux/AlmaLinux/Rocky Linux
install_nginx_centos() {
    # Install necessary utilities
    yum install yum-utils -y || { echo 'Installing yum-utils failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Install EPEL repository
    yum install epel-release -y || { echo 'Installing EPEL repository failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Update the repository
    yum update -y || { echo 'Updating repository failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Install NGINX
    yum install nginx -y || { echo 'Installing NGINX failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Start NGINX
    systemctl start nginx || { echo 'Starting NGINX failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Enable NGINX to start on boot
    systemctl enable nginx || { echo 'Enabling NGINX to start on boot failed' ; exit 1; }
}

# Function to install NGINX on Debian
install_nginx_debian() {
    # Update the Debian repository information
    apt-get update -y || { echo 'Updating repository information failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Install prerequisites
    apt-get install curl gnupg2 ca-certificates lsb-release debian-archive-keyring -y || { echo 'Installing prerequisites failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Import an official NGINX signing key
    curl https://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key | gpg --dearmor | tee /usr/share/keyrings/nginx-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null || { echo 'Importing NGINX signing key failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Set up the apt repository for stable NGINX packages
    echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/nginx-archive-keyring.gpg] http://nginx.org/packages/debian `lsb_release -cs` nginx" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list || { echo 'Setting up the apt repository failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Set up repository pinning
    echo -e "Package: *\nPin: origin nginx.org\nPin: release o=nginx\nPin-Priority: 900\n" | tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/99nginx || { echo 'Setting up repository pinning failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Install the NGINX package
    apt update || { echo 'Updating repository information failed' ; exit 1; }
    apt install nginx -y || { echo 'Installing NGINX failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Start NGINX
    systemctl start nginx || { echo 'Starting NGINX failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Enable NGINX to start on boot
    systemctl enable nginx || { echo 'Enabling NGINX to start on boot failed' ; exit 1; }
}

# Function to install NGINX on Ubuntu
install_nginx_ubuntu() {
    # Update the Ubuntu repository information
    apt-get update -y || { echo 'Updating repository information failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Install NGINX
    apt-get install nginx -y || { echo 'Installing NGINX failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Start NGINX
    systemctl start nginx || { echo 'Starting NGINX failed' ; exit 1; }

    # Enable NGINX to start on boot
    systemctl enable nginx || { echo 'Enabling NGINX to start on boot failed' ; exit 1; }
}

# Check the Linux distribution and call the appropriate function
if [ -f /etc/os-release ]; then
    . /etc/os-release
    case $ID in
        centos|rhel|oraclelinux|almalinux|rocky)
            install_nginx_centos
            ;;
        debian)
            install_nginx_debian
            ;;
        ubuntu)
            install_nginx_ubuntu
            ;;
        *)
            echo "Unsupported Linux distribution"
            exit 1
            ;;
    esac
else
    echo "Not a Linux system or Linux distribution not supported"
    exit 1
fi

# Test if NGINX is running
if systemctl status nginx >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    echo "NGINX is running successfully"
else
    echo "NGINX is not running. Please check the installation"
    exit 1
fi

The next post covers the same installation through the Ansible Collection for NGINX, if Ansible is more your speed.