Normally if you install Nginx from a repository this init script would already be included. However if you installed from source, or did not use the standard paths, you may need this.
If you find that stop/restart and such do not work, your pid file location may be incorrect. You can either set it in the nginx.conf or you can change the init script here to point to the correct pid location. If you’re ever in a pinch stopping and restarting an nginx process that’s already running you can use the following:
nginx -s quit (or reload)
Quit will terminate the existing processes, reload will keep nginx running but will simply reload the configuration. But if your init script is setup properly you should be able to use that instead.
The below init script was for a configuration where /opt was the provided configuration prefix.
#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: nginx
# Required-Start: $all
# Required-Stop: $all
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: starts the nginx web server
# Description: starts nginx using start-stop-daemon
### END INIT INFO
PATH=/opt/bin:/opt/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/opt/sbin/nginx
NAME=nginx
DESC=nginx
test -x $DAEMON || exit 0
# Include nginx defaults if available
if [ -f /etc/default/nginx ] ; then
. /etc/default/nginx
fi
set -e
case "$1" in
start)
echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile /var/run/nginx.pid \
--exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
echo "$NAME."
;;
stop)
echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile /var/run/nginx.pid \
--exec $DAEMON
echo "$NAME."
;;
restart|force-reload)
echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile \
/var/run/nginx.pid --exec $DAEMON
sleep 1
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile \
/var/run/nginx.pid --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
echo "$NAME."
;;
reload)
echo -n "Reloading $DESC configuration: "
start-stop-daemon --stop --signal HUP --quiet --pidfile /var/run/nginx.pid \
--exec $DAEMON
echo "$NAME."
;;
*)
N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0