If your configuration does not include a root /some/absolute/path; statement, or it includes one that uses a relative path like root some/relative/path;, then the resulting path depends on compile-time options.
Probably the only case that would allow you to make an educated guess as to what this means for you would be, if you downloaded and compiled the source yourself. In that case, the paths would be relative to whatever --prefix was used. If you didn't change it, it defaults to /usr/local/nginx. You can find the parameters nginx was compiled with via nginx -V, it lists --prefix as the first one.
Since the root directive defaults to html, this would, of course, result in /usr/local/nginx/html being the answer to your question.
However, if you installed nginx in any other way, all bets are off. Your distribution might use entirely different default paths. Learning to figure out what kind of defaults your distribution of choice uses for things is another task entirely.
The default Nginx directory on Debian is /var/www/nginx-default.
You can check the file: /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
and find
server {
listen 80 default;
server_name localhost;
access_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.access.log;
location / {
root /var/www/nginx-default;
index index.html index.htm;
}
The root is the default location.
'default public web root' can be found from nginx -V output:
nginx -V
nginx version: nginx/1.10.1
built with OpenSSL 1.0.2h 3 May 2016
TLS SNI support enabled
configure arguments: --prefix=/var/lib/nginx --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf --pid-path=/run/nginx/nginx.pid --lock-path=/run/nginx/nginx.lock --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/tmp/client_body --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/tmp/proxy --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/tmp/fastcgi --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/tmp/uwsgi --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/tmp/scgi --user=nginx --group=nginx --with-ipv6 --with-file-aio --with-pcre-jit --with-http_dav_module --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_v2_module --with-http_auth_request_module --with-mail --with-mail_ssl_module
the --prefix value is the answer to the question. for the sample above the root is /var/lib/nginx
You can simply map nginx's root folder to the location of your website:
nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
inside the default file, look for the root in the server tag and change your website's default folder, e.g. my websites are at /var/www
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
root /var/www; <-- Here!
...
When I was evaluating nginx, apache2 and lighttpd, I mapped all of them to my website sitting at /var/www. I found this the best way to evaluate efficiently.
Then you can start/stop the server of your choice and see which performs best.
e.g.
service apache2 stop
service nginx start
Btw, nginx actually is very fast!
as most users here said, it is under this path:
/usr/share/nginx/html
This is the default path, but you can make yours though.
all you need is to create one in the web server root tree and give it some permissions "not 0777" and only for one user and visible to that user only, but the end of the path is visible to everyone since the end of the path is what your files and folders will be viewed by public.
for example, you can make one like this:
home_web/site1/public_html/www/
whenever you make a virtual host in Nginx you can customize your own root path, just add something like this in your server block:
server {
listen 80;
server_name yoursite.com;
root /home_web/site1/public_html/www/;
}
Dump the configuration:
$ nginx -T
...
server {
...
location / {
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
...
}
...
}
What you get might be different since it depends on how your nginx was configured/installed.
References:
Update: There's some confusion on the issue of if/when the -T option was added to nginx. It was documented in the man page by vl-homutov on 2015 June 16, which became part of the v1.9.2 release. It's even mentioned in the release notes. The -T option has been present in every nginx release since, including the one available on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS:
root@23cc8e58640e:/# nginx -h
nginx version: nginx/1.10.0 (Ubuntu)
Usage: nginx [-?hvVtTq] [-s signal] [-c filename] [-p prefix] [-g directives]
Options:
-?,-h : this help
-v : show version and exit
-V : show version and configure options then exit
-t : test configuration and exit
-T : test configuration, dump it and exit
-q : suppress non-error messages during configuration testing
-s signal : send signal to a master process: stop, quit, reopen, reload
-p prefix : set prefix path (default: /usr/share/nginx/)
-c filename : set configuration file (default: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf)
-g directives : set global directives out of configuration file
Just to note that the default index page for the nginx server will also display the root location as well. From the nginx (1.4.3) on Amazon Linux AMI, you get the following:
This is the default index.html page that is distributed with nginx on the Amazon Linux AMI. It is located in /usr/share/nginx/html.
You should now put your content in a location of your choice and edit the root configuration directive in the nginx configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
If you need to find out nginx public root folder that was defined at compile time you can just check your access.log file.
Here is an example from the http section of nginx.conf with modified log_format directive, $document_root is added at the beginning of the string:
http {
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
## ADD $document_root HERE ##
log_format main '$document_root $remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
'$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
'"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
etc. .......
Then backup all configuration files *.conf in conf.d directory and create there configuration file, test.conf with the following lines:
server{
listen 80;
server_name localhost;
}
Add following line to /etc/hosts file: 127.0.0.1 localhost
Reload nginx configuration: nginx -s reload
Send GET request to http://localhost: curl http://localhost
Check the last string of access.log:tail -n 1 /var/log/nginx/access.log
Here is the sample output of this command, where /etc/nginx/html is the default document root defined at compile time :
/etc/nginx/html 127.0.0.1 - - [15/Mar/2017:17:12:25 +0200] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 404 169 "-" "curl/7.35.0" "-"
*default pages web allocated in var/www/html *default configuration server etc/nginx/sites/avaliable/nginx.conf
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;
root /var/www/html;
index index.html index.php;
server_name _;
location /data/ {
autoindex on;
}
location /Maxtor {
root /media/odroid/;
autoindex on;
}
# This option is important for using PHP.
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock;
}
}
*default configuracion server etc/nginx/nginx.conf
content..
user www-data;
worker_processes 8;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;
events {
worker_connections 768;
# multi_accept on;
}
http {
##
# Basic Settings
##
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
types_hash_max_size 2048;
# server_tokens off;
# server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
# server_name_in_redirect off;
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
##
# SSL Settings
##
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
##
# Logging Settings
##
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
##
# Gzip Settings
##
gzip on;
# gzip_vary on;
# gzip_proxied any;
# gzip_comp_level 6;
# gzip_buffers 16 8k;
# gzip_http_version 1.1;
# gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
##
# Virtual Host Configs
##
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}
#mail {
# # See sample authentication script at:
# # http://wiki.nginx.org/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript
#
# # auth_http localhost/auth.php;
# # pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";
# # imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";
#
# server {
# listen localhost:110;
# protocol pop3;
# proxy on;
# }
#
# server {
# listen localhost:143;
# protocol imap;
# proxy on;
# }
#}
default access logs with ip clients var/log/nginx/...
My nginx on Ubuntu is "nginx version: nginx/1.9.12 (Ubuntu)" and root path is /var/www/html/
Ubuntu info is : No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Release: 16.04 Codename: xenial
Actually, if you just installed nginx on Ubuntu, then you can go to "/etc/nginx/sites-available" and check the default file, there is a configuration like "root /web/root/path/goes/here". And that is what you are looking for.
I also had this issue on Digital Ocean running a WordPress website with nginx.
My solution was to do the following:
/etc/nginx/nginx.conf file with the following:server {
root /var/www/html;
}
I then had to sudo service nginx restart
nginx -V command also shows you where your nginx config file is located as well (mine was pointed at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf)
The default is related to the prefix option of the configure script when nginx is compiled; here's some strange sample from Debian:
% nginx -V | & tr ' ' "\n" | fgrep -e path -e prefix
--prefix=/etc/nginx
--conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
--error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log
--http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/body
--http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fastcgi
--http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log
--http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy
--http-scgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/scgi
--http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/uwsgi
--lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock
--pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid
Subsequently, the default value of root is set to the html directory (as per the documentation of the root directive), which happens to be within prefix , as can be verified by looking at the $document_root variable from a simple configuration file:
# printf 'server{listen 4867;return 200 $document_root\\n;}\n' \
>/etc/nginx/conf.d/so.10674867.conf
# nginx -s reload && curl localhost:4867
/etc/nginx/html
However, evil distributions like Debian seem to modify it quite a bit, to keep you extra entertained:
% fgrep -e root -e include /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
#include /etc/nginx/naxsi_core.rules;
#passenger_root /usr;
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
% fgrep -e root -e include \
/etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*
/etc/nginx/conf.d/so.10674867.conf:server{listen 4867;return 200 $document_root\n;}
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default: root /usr/share/nginx/www;
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default: # include /etc/nginx/naxsi.rules
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default: # root /usr/share/nginx/www;
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default: # include fastcgi_params;
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default: # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:# root html;
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:# root html;
So, on this instance of Debian, you can see that the root is finally set to /usr/share/nginx/www.
But as you saw with the sample server configuration that would serve its $document_root value over http, configuring nginx is simple enough that you can write your own configuration in a matter of a single line or two, specifying the required root to meet your exact needs.
Alpine Linux does not have any default location at all. The file /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf says:
# Everything is a 404
location / {
return 404;
}
# You may need this to prevent return 404 recursion.
location = /404.html {
internal;
}
Replace those with a line like root /var/www/localhost/htdocs to point to the directory you want. Then sudo service nginx restart to restart.
