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NGINX® with Reverse Proxy

Valid for versions 112 through the latest version

Version:

102

112

Last modified: 2025 February 10

Overview

Note:
  • This document refers to NGINX® functionality when you install the ea-nginx package in either WHM’s NGINX Manager interface (WHM » Home » Software » NGINX Manager) or WHM’s EasyApache 4 interface (WHM » Home » Software » EasyApache 4). This package is our production version of NGINX. For information about our previous, experimental version of NGINX, now our ea-nginx-standalone package, read our NGINX Standalone documentation.
  • This feature is not currently compatible with the LiteSpeed Web Server.

This document explains how to install NGINX, an open source web server that also provides a reverse proxy, load balancing, and caching, on a server that runs cPanel & WHM and EasyApache 4.

cPanel & WHM’s NGINX with reverse proxy passes dynamic content through a proxy to Apache®. This version of NGINX uses caching in order to serve content more quickly.

Stop or restart NGINX

To stop or restart NGINX, use the /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/restartsrv_nginx script.

Warning:
Do not use the nginx command to stop or restart NGINX. If you do, you will have to troubleshoot to fix resultant problems.

We strongly recommend that you only use the cPanel script or WHM’s Service Manager interface (WHM » Home » Service Configuration » Service Manager) to restart NGINX.

For more information, read our How to Restart Services documentation.

Configure a user

The system integrates NGINX into your user and domain changes.

The system uses the /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/ea-nginx script to make these changes. You do not need to run this script.

The system creates the .conf file in the following location, where username represents the username:

/etc/nginx/conf.d/users/username.conf

Configure an application

Use cPanel’s Application Manager interface (Home » cPanel » Software » Application Manager) to configure applications.

NGINX-specific packages

We provide some additional packages that you can use with NGINX. These packages provide functionality that may otherwise be missing in the installation.

Compression

We provide the gzip and Brotli packages to enable compression on NGINX. If you install one of these packages, it will enable that compression globally.

If you use compression with SSL/TLS requests, your compressed responses may be vulnerable to BREACH attacks. To lower the risk of this type of attack, you can perform one of the following actions:

  1. Do not send sensitive data in your HTTP responses.
  2. Limit your responses to only use secure samesite cookies.
Remember:
cPanel’s Optimize Website interface (cPanel » Home » Software » Optimize Website) does not work with NGINX. Any changes you make there do not affect your compression settings.

Brotli

To use Brotli, install the ea-nginx-brotli package in the Additional Packages section of WHM’s EasyApache 4 interface (WHM » Home » Software » EasyApache 4).

You can use the /etc/nginx/conf.d/brotli.conf configuration file to configure your Brotli installation. For more information about configuring Brotli, read the NGINX Brotli module documentation.

Note:
Some clients only support Brotli over HTTPS.

gzip

To use gzip, install the ea-nginx-gzip package in the Additional Packages section of WHM’s EasyApache 4 interface (WHM » Home » Software » EasyApache 4).

You can use the /etc/nginx/conf.d/gzip.conf configuration file to configure your gzip installation. For more information about configuring gzip, read the NGINX gzip module documentation.

HTTP2

To use HTTP/2 with NGINX, you must install the ea-nginx-http2 package. You can install this package in the Additional Packages section of WHM’s EasyApache 4 interface (WHM » Home » Software » EasyApache 4).

When you install the ea-nginx-http2 package, the system creates the /etc/nginx/conf.d/http2.conf file. This is a comment-only file that you can use to set your system’s HTTP/2 configuration. NGINX only supports HTTP/2 via SSL. NGINX terminates the protocol when it sends a proxy request to Apache that uses HTTP/2. NGINX uses HTTP 1.1 to communicate with Apache.

Note:

We don’t require the Apache mod_http2 module if you wish to use HTTP/2 on a system that runs NGINX.

NGINX JavaScript Module (NJS)

The NGINX JavaScript module (NJS) allows you to use NGINX’s JavaScript-based scripting language with your NGINX server. To use NJS, install the ea-nginx-njs package in the Additional Packages section of WHM’s EasyApache 4 interface (WHM » Home » Software » EasyApache 4).

You can use the /etc/nginx/conf.d/njs.conf configuration file to configure your NJS installation.

For more information, read the NGINX NJS documentation.