Nginx one of the popular web server used by high traffic web sites have come up with NGINX Unit, an application server that can serve PHP, Python And Go language web applications.

To Install Nginx Unit on Ubuntu 16.04, first add nginx key

wget http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key
sudo apt-key add nginx_signing.key

Add Nginx Unit repository by editing

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Add following 2 lines to end of the file

deb http://nginx.org/packages/mainline/ubuntu/ xenial nginx
deb-src http://nginx.org/packages/mainline/ubuntu/ xenial nginx

Install Nginx Unit with command

apt-get update
apt-get -y install unit

I was expecting it will install nginx, then this new “unit”, that replace php-fpm. But all it installed was the new unit package.

Starting Nginx Unit

To start Nginx Unit, run

service unitd start

This won’t start any web server, that is at this stage, if you check with netstat, you won’t see any new LISTENING ports.

Now, you need to restoreconfig file, this can be done with command

service unitd restoreconfig /usr/share/doc/unit/examples/example.config

You can see current config with command

root@hon:~# service unitd dumpconfig
The following configuration has been saved to /etc/unit/config:
{
    "applications": {
        "example_php": {
            "type": "php",
            "user": "nobody",
            "group": "nogroup",
            "workers": 2,
            "root": "/usr/share/doc/unit/examples/php-app",
            "index": "index.php"
        },

        "example_python": {
            "type": "python",
            "user": "nobody",
            "group": "nogroup",
            "workers": 2,
            "path": "/usr/share/doc/unit/examples/python-app",
            "module": "wsgi"
        },

        "example_go": {
            "type": "go",
            "user": "nobody",
            "group": "nogroup",
            "executable": "/tmp/go-app"
        }
    },

    "listeners": {
        "*:8300": {
            "application": "example_php"
        },

        "*:8400": {
            "application": "example_python"
        },

        "*:8500": {
            "application": "example_go"
        }
    }
}
root@hon:~# 

As you can see from the config, PHP application is running on port 8300, python on port 8400, golang app on port 8500. For some reason, go lang application did not work as binary is missing. Look like you need to compile golang application yourself.

Here is config if you want to run PHP application on port 80

{
    "applications": {
        "my_php_app": {
            "type": "php",
            "user": "nobody",
            "group": "nogroup",
            "workers": 2,
            "root": "/var/www/html",
            "index": "index.php"
        }
    },

    "listeners": {
        "*:80": {
            "application": "my_php_app"
        }
    }
}

See Nginx