--- author: Mike Conrad categories: - Docker - Networking - Self Hosted date: "2024-07-16T21:42:43Z" tags: - Blog Post title: Debugging running Nginx config --- I was recently working on project where a client had cPanel/WHM with Nginx and Apache. They had a large number of sites managed by Nginx with a large number of includes. I created a custom config to override a location block and needed to be certain that my changes where actually being picked up. Anytime I make changes to an Nginx config, I try to be vigilant about running: ```shell nginx -t ``` to test my configuration and ensure I don’t have any syntax errors. I was looking for an easy way to view the actual compiled config and found the `-T` flag which will test the configuration and dump it to standard out. This is pretty handy if you have a large number of includes in various locations. Here is an example from a fresh Nginx Docker container: ```conf root@2771f302dc98:/# nginx -T nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful # configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf: user nginx; worker_processes auto; error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log notice; pid /var/run/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { include /etc/nginx/mime.types; 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 /var/log/nginx/access.log main; sendfile on; #tcp_nopush on; keepalive_timeout 65; #gzip on; include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf; } # configuration file /etc/nginx/mime.types: types { text/html html htm shtml; text/css css; text/xml xml; image/gif gif; image/jpeg jpeg jpg; application/javascript js; application/atom+xml atom; application/rss+xml rss; text/mathml mml; text/plain txt; text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor jad; text/vnd.wap.wml wml; text/x-component htc; image/avif avif; image/png png; image/svg+xml svg svgz; image/tiff tif tiff; image/vnd.wap.wbmp wbmp; image/webp webp; image/x-icon ico; image/x-jng jng; image/x-ms-bmp bmp; font/woff woff; font/woff2 woff2; application/java-archive jar war ear; application/json json; application/mac-binhex40 hqx; application/msword doc; application/pdf pdf; application/postscript ps eps ai; application/rtf rtf; application/vnd.apple.mpegurl m3u8; application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml kml; application/vnd.google-earth.kmz kmz; application/vnd.ms-excel xls; application/vnd.ms-fontobject eot; application/vnd.ms-powerpoint ppt; application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics odg; application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation odp; application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet ods; application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text odt; application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation pptx; application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet xlsx; application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document docx; application/vnd.wap.wmlc wmlc; application/wasm wasm; application/x-7z-compressed 7z; application/x-cocoa cco; application/x-java-archive-diff jardiff; application/x-java-jnlp-file jnlp; application/x-makeself run; application/x-perl pl pm; application/x-pilot prc pdb; application/x-rar-compressed rar; application/x-redhat-package-manager rpm; application/x-sea sea; application/x-shockwave-flash swf; application/x-stuffit sit; application/x-tcl tcl tk; application/x-x509-ca-cert der pem crt; application/x-xpinstall xpi; application/xhtml+xml xhtml; application/xspf+xml xspf; application/zip zip; application/octet-stream bin exe dll; application/octet-stream deb; application/octet-stream dmg; application/octet-stream iso img; application/octet-stream msi msp msm; audio/midi mid midi kar; audio/mpeg mp3; audio/ogg ogg; audio/x-m4a m4a; audio/x-realaudio ra; video/3gpp 3gpp 3gp; video/mp2t ts; video/mp4 mp4; video/mpeg mpeg mpg; video/quicktime mov; video/webm webm; video/x-flv flv; video/x-m4v m4v; video/x-mng mng; video/x-ms-asf asx asf; video/x-ms-wmv wmv; video/x-msvideo avi; } # configuration file /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf: server { listen 80; server_name localhost; #access_log /var/log/nginx/host.access.log main; location / { root /usr/share/nginx/html; index index.html index.htm; } #error_page 404 /404.html; # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html # error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html; location = /50x.html { root /usr/share/nginx/html; } # proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80 # #location ~ \.php$ { # proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1; #} # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000 # #location ~ \.php$ { # root html; # fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000; # fastcgi_index index.php; # fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /scripts$fastcgi_script_name; # include fastcgi_params; #} # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root # concurs with nginx's one # #location ~ /\.ht { # deny all; #} } ``` As you can see from the output above, we get all of the various Nginx config files in use printed to the console, perfect for `grepping` or searching/filtering with other tools.