How to make modification take affect without restart nginx?

Question

Apache has a graceful option which can scan for modification in http.conf without restarting apache,what about nginx?

Answer 1

nginx supports the following signals :

TERM, INT - Quick shutdown
QUIT - Graceful shutdown
HUP - Configuration reload: Start the new worker processes with a new configuration, Gracefully shutdown the old worker processes
USR1 - Reopen the log files
USR2 - Upgrade Executable on the fly
WINCH - Gracefully shutdown the worker processes

HUP is what you are looking for, so sudo kill -HUP pid (nginx pid)

source : http://nginx.org/en/docs/control.html

Answer 2

Usually nginx's init-script has reload action, i.e:

• Linux /etc/init.d/nginx reload
• FreeBSD /usr/local/etc/rc.d/nginx reload

Answer 3

Use nginx -s reload

Answer 4

I wrote about how to restart nginx with zero downtime a while ago. This may be helpful for you.

http://tumblelog.jauderho.com/post/101514948/restart-nginx-with-zero-downtime