NGINX is an open-source HTTP Server software that has free and paid versions; named Open Source and Plus, respectively. It also offers features such as reverse proxy, IP address-based ALC, TLC 1.3 support, and gRPC Proxy. You can check the table below to see the difference between NGINX Open Source and NGINX Plus:
| Features | NGINX Open Source | NGINX Plus |
| Load balancer | ||
| HTTP and TCP/UDP support | Yes | Yes |
| Layer 7 request routing | Yes | Yes |
| Session persistence | Yes | Yes |
| Active health checks | No | Yes |
| DNS service‑discovery integration | No | Yes |
| Content cache | ||
| Static and dynamic content caching | Yes | Yes |
| Cache‑purging API | No | Yes |
| Web server and reverse proxy | ||
| Origin server for static content | Yes | Yes |
| Reverse proxy: HTTP, FastCGI, memcached, SCGI, uwsgi | Yes | Yes |
| HTTP/2 gateway | Yes | Yes |
| gRPC proxy | Yes | Yes |
| HTTP/2 server push | Yes | Yes |
| Security controls | ||
| HTTP Basic Authentication | Yes | Yes |
| HTTP authentication subrequests | Yes | Yes |
| IP address‑based access control lists | Yes | Yes |
| Rate limiting | Yes | Yes |
| Dual‑stack RSA/ECC SSL/TLS offload | Yes | Yes |
| TLS 1.3 support | Yes | Yes |
| JWT authentication | No | Yes |
| OpenID Connect single sign‑on (SSO) | No | Yes |
| NGINX App Protect (additional cost) | No | Yes |
| Monitoring | ||
| Export to external monitoring tools | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in dashboard | No | Yes |
| Extended status with 100+ additional metrics | No | Yes |
| High availability (HA) | ||
| Active‑active and active‑passive modes | No | Yes |
| Configuration synchronization across cluster | No | Yes |
| State sharing: sticky‑learn session persistence, rate limiting, key‑value stores | No | Yes |
| Programmability | ||
| NGINX JavaScript module | Yes | Yes |
| NGINX Plus API for dynamic reconfiguration | No | Yes |
| Key‑value store | No | Yes |
| Dynamic reconfiguration without process reloads | No | Yes |
| Streaming media | ||
| Live streaming: RTMP, HLS, DASH | Yes | Yes |
| VOD: Flash (FLV), MP4 | Yes | Yes |
| Adaptive bitrate VOD: HLS, HDS | No | Yes |
| MP4 bandwidth controls | No | Yes |
| Third-party ecosystem | ||
| Ingress controller | Yes | Yes |
| OpenShift Router | Yes | Yes |
| Dynamic modules repository | No | Yes |
| Commercial support | No | Yes |
NGINX Installation
Update your packages
First, update the packages on the server to make an up-to-date installation. To do this, enter the following command on the terminal screen.
dnf update -y && dnf upgrade -y
Download NGINX
After the update is completed successfully, use the following command on the terminal screen and start the NGINX installation.
dnf install nginx -y
Start NGINX Service
NGINX was successfully installed. Now start the NGINX service.
systemctl enable nginx
systemctl start nginx
Allow HTTP and HTTPS
NGINX service started successfully. We need to allow HTTP and HTTPS over the firewall. To do this, enter the following commands on the terminal screen.
firewall-cmd –permanent –zone=public –add-service=http
firewall-cmd –permanent –zone=public –add-service=https
firewall-cmd –reload
It’s Done!
To make sure that the installation is completed successfully, enter the IP address in the browser.
