Updating to nginx 0.6.34 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1Edit

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These notes were made during the upgrade from nginx 0.6.32 to nginx 0.6.34 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1.

Although the nginx wiki does describe how to swap in a new binary without dropping any connections, I decided that a more conservative approach would be to stop the server, move the entire old /usr/local/nginx/ folder out of the way, install the new version, and restart. That way I could back out of the update fairly cleanly and easily if anything went wrong.

Grab the source, configure and build:

$ wget http://sysoev.ru/nginx/nginx-0.6.34.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf nginx-0.6.34.tar.gz
$ cd nginx-0.6.34
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/nginx --with-http_ssl_module
$ make

Get ready to deploy:

$ sudo -s

Check how everything is going (note that I am using monit to manage my nginx and mongrel instances):

# monit summary

Shut down the old instance:

# monit stop all

Make sure that it has shut down completely:

# monit summary

Move the old install off to one side:

# mv /usr/local/nginx /usr/local/nginx-0.6.32

Actually install:

# make install

Copy over the old configuration files (note that I have two, one for staging and one for production):

# cd /usr/local
# cp nginx-0.6.32/conf/nginx-staging.conf nginx/conf/
# mv nginx/conf/nginx.conf nginx/conf/nginx.conf.vendor
# cp nginx-0.6.32/conf/nginx.conf nginx/conf/
# cd nginx/conf

Check config file syntax:

# cd ..
# sbin/nginx -t -c conf/nginx.conf
# sbin/nginx -t -c conf/nginx-staging.conf

Go live with new server:

# monit start all

Make sure it’s up:

# monit summary

And we’re done:

# exit