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Nginx Server Configs homepage | Documentation table of contents
Nginx.conf
The nginx.conf file is the main config file for nginx, which either defines
or includes the whole configuration for the server.
When editing or defining an nginx configuration file - take care to note in which context a directive applies.
Below are some notes on a few of the more important/commonly-edited directives. For detailed information on any particular directive, please see the official documentation.
user
The user directive indicates which user the server will run as. This is typically a user specifically for web usage such as "www" "www-data".
The webserver user, and file permissions for any application, should be defined/chosen following the principle of least privilege i.e., sufficient priveleges to function correctly but no more than that.
worker_processes
The worker_processes directive broadly defines the number of connections nginx can process.
As of version 1.2.5+ and 1.3.8+, nginx supports the value "auto" which will automatically detect an appropriate value. In earlier versions setting to the number of CPUs is a good default/starting point.
error_log
The error_log directive can be defined/overriden in any context. The directive in the main context defines the log file to use unless otherwise overriden (at http, server or location level). This must point to a location writable to the webserver user.
The location for log files varies depending on the operating system; one technique
to allow the config files to be ignorant of this is to symlink /etc/nginx/logs
to where you would like log files to be located. e.g.:
mkdir /var/log/nginx
cd /etc/nginx
ln -s /var/log/nginx logs
pid
The pid directive is used by nginx to store the process id of the main process. This must point to a writable location.