Servers

Overview Apache, Nginx, PHP

Web Server Software

• A web server is computer software that accepts requests via HTTP (web content network protocol) or its secure variant HTTPS.
• A web browser makes a request for a web page or other resource using HTTP, and the server responds with the content of that resource.
• According to W3Techs review of all websites in June 2022, Apache was ranked second at 31.4% and Nginx first at 33.6%, with Cloudflare Server third at 21.6%.

NGINX vs. Apache: Which web server is better for performance and scalability?

Apache HTTP Server

• Since 1995
• Free and open-source cross-platform web server software (Apache License).
• Usually installed on Linux (the A in the LAMP stack)
• So popular it has always been already installed on MacOS.
• Widely capable by configuring it with additional modules.
• Apache is process-driven creating a thread per each request.

Nginx

• Since 2004. Pronounced “engine x”
• Free and open-source cross-platform web server software (BSD license) .
• Newer, and generally considered easier to configure, thus LEMP
• Can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy and HTTP cache.
• NGINX uses a non-threaded, event-driven architecture to handle multiple requests within a single thread. Thus, can outperform Apache if configured correctly.

Install Nginx

Installing Nginx will

• Let you run any script that requires a server (APIs, imports, PHP, etc.) on localhost, at any time.
• Give you a development server to test with.
• Initial installation differs per platform. Do these and go to the next slide:

Mac

1. Install homebrew and run

brew install nginx
brew services start nginx
nginx -v

2. Go to http://localhost:8080

Windows

1. Follow either official or these instructions for installation
2. Confirm nginx -v
3. Go to http://localhost:8080

Nginx Tips

# location of nginx.conf (Mac)
/opt/homebrew/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

# test the config file
nginx -t

# each time you update nginx.conf file
brew services restart nginx

# to see all services and their status
brew services list

# show log files (location in nginx.conf)
tail /opt/homebrew/var/log/nginx/access.log
tail /opt/homebrew/var/log/nginx/error.log

# open nginx folder for easier editing
cd /opt/homebrew/etc/nginx/
code .

Install PHP (Nginx)

1. Run brew install php
2. Edit your nginx.conf to look like my sample: https://gist.github.com/omundy/092d1293349dd1b4f7f5729cf7233463
3. Restart nginx, start PHP, list services to make sure both are running

brew services restart nginx
brew services start php
brew services list

PHP Test

1. Create a new file in your root directory: phpinfo.php
2. Add below text
3. Go to http://localhost (don’t need 8080 port since we changed to 80 in nginx.conf)

<?php
    phpinfo();
?>

References

• Setting up a Nginx server on macOS (2017)
• macOS: Install nginx, MySQL and PHP via brew (2021)