Nginx not running with no error message

Question

I am trying to start my nginx server. When I type "$> /etc/init.d/nginx start", I have a message appearing "Starting nginx:", and then nothing happens. There is no error message, and when I check the status of nginx I see that it is not running.

Here is my /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file:

worker_processes  4;
daemon off;

error_log  /home/vincent/tmp/nginx.log;

pid        /home/vincent/tmp/nginx.pid;


events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}


http {
default_type  application/octet-stream;

log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

access_log  /home/vincent/tmp/access.log  main;

sendfile        on;

keepalive_timeout  65;

include /etc/nginx/site-enabled/*;

}

And here is my /etc/nginx/sites-available/default file :

server {
  listen       80;
  server_name technical-test.neo9.lan; 

  access_log  /var/log/nginx/technical-test.neo9.lan.log main;

  set $home /home/vincent;

  location / {
    alias $home/neo9/web/app/;
    index  index.html;
  }

  location /api/ {
    rewrite  ^/api/(.*)$  /$1 break;
    proxy_pass http://localhost:1234;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
  }
}

Did you try service nginx configtest ? – Tim Baas Jul 25 '13 at 13:40 — Tim Baas, Jul 25 '13 at 13:40
Using this command give me this answer : "Testing nginx configuration: nginx." – user2618928 Jul 25 '13 at 13:44 — user2618928, Jul 25 '13 at 13:44
And "sudo nginx -t" gives me : nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful – user2618928 Jul 25 '13 at 13:46 — user2618928, Jul 25 '13 at 13:46
Did you also try starting nginx with sudo? – Tim Baas Jul 25 '13 at 13:47 — Tim Baas, Jul 25 '13 at 13:47
I am always starting it with sudo, otherwise I get an error of permission denied when it tries to acces the error.log file – user2618928 Jul 25 '13 at 13:49 — user2618928, Jul 25 '13 at 13:49

Jay Mayu · Answer 1 · 2013-12-21 08:38:45Z

First, always sudo nginx -t to verify your config files are good.

I ran into the same problem. The reason I had the issue was twofold. First, I had accidentally copied a log file into my site-enabled folder. I deleted the log file and made sure that all the files in sites-enabled were proper nginx site configs. I also noticed two of my virtual hosts were listening for the same domain. So I made sure that each of my virtual hosts had unique domain names.

sudo service nginx restart

Then it worked.

sudo nginx -t is an awesome tip :) – Jay Mayu Dec 21 '13 at 8:38 — Jay Mayu, Dec 21 '13 at 8:38
As you(@badmadrad) said I got the following by running sudo nginx -t.but still when I try to restart it fail. ferdinand@ferdinand-desktop:~$ sudo nginx -t nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful ferdinand@ferdinand-desktop:~$ sudo service nginx restart * Restarting nginx nginx [fail] – Ferdinand Rosario Aug 4 '14 at 11:36 — Ferdinand Rosario, Aug 4 '14 at 11:36
make sure your site-enabled only has nginx conf files in there. Also make sure there is no port conflict when starting nginx. – badmadrad Sep 23 '14 at 17:15 — badmadrad, Sep 23 '14 at 17:15

Arvind Bhardwaj · Answer 2 · 2015-09-29 04:19:35Z

You should probably check for errors in /var/log/nginx/error.log.

In my case I did no add the port for ipv6. You should also do this (in case you are running nginx on a port other than 80): listen [::]:8000 default_server ipv6only=on;

DanielBlanco · Answer 3 · 2014-04-09 17:07:25Z

In your /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file you have:

include /etc/nginx/site-enabled/*;

And probably the path you are using is:

/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Notice the missing s in site.

zloboid · Answer 4 · 2013-08-08 11:33:12Z

Check the daemon option in nginx.conf file. It has to be ON. Or you can simply rip out this line from config file. This option is fully described here http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#daemon

gtamorim · Answer 5 · 2016-03-18 10:14:16Z

1. Check for your configuration files by running the aforementioned command: sudo nginx -t.

2. Check for port conflicts. For instance, if apache2 (ps waux | grep apache2) or any other service is using the same ports configured for nginx (say port 80) the service will not start and will fail silently (err... the cousin of my friend had this problem...)

Zahid Rahman · Answer 6 · 2017-02-15 05:37:11Z

One case you check that nginx hold on 80 number port in system by default , check if you have any server like as apache or anything exist on system that block 80 number port thats the problem occurred.

1 .You change port number on nginx by this way,

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Change 80 to 81 or anything,

Check everything is ok by ,

sudo nginx -t

Restart server

sudo service nginx start

Check the status of nginx:

sudo service nginx status

Hope that will work

Kousha · Answer 7 · 2014-07-21 19:40:08Z

I had the exact same problem with my instance. My problem was that I forgot to allow port 80 access to the server. Maybe that's your issue as well?

Check with your WHM and make sure that port is open for the IP address of your site,

Teemu Leisti · Answer 8 · 2014-11-21 17:22:36Z

For what it's worth: I just had the same problem, after editing the nginx.conf file. I tried and tried restarting it by commanding sudo nginx restart and various other commands. None of them produced any output. Commanding sudo nginx -t to check the configuration file gave the output sudo: nginx: command not found, which was puzzling. I was starting to think there were problems with the path.

Finally, I logged in as root (sudo su) and commanded sudo nginx restart. Now, the command displayed an error message concerning the configuration file. After fixing that, it restarted successfully.

Nginx not running with no error message

Nginx not running with no error message

8 Answers