Confusion about `nginx -t`

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1

Hello again.

While still learning a lot about NGinx (many more questions to come…) I am confused abou the output of the “nginx -t” command. When running just like that it gives me the following error messages:

[warn] 767805#767805: the “user” directive makes sense only if the master process runs with super-user privileges, ignored in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:1

[emerg] 767805#767805: open() “/etc/nginx/conf.d/botblocker-nginx-settings.conf” failed (13: Permission denied) in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:78

When running “sudo nginx -t” everything looks ok:

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Am I supposed to correct something in nginx.conf (line 1 “user www-data;” and 78 “include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;”)? Is this somewhat normal? Can this be ignored?

Still very new to NGinx obviously so I hope You don’t mind me asking in here…. Thanks in advance for any helpful reply!

Jens

2

I’m definitely not a NGINX guru, but here goes:

This is normal behavior and you don’t need to correct anything in your nginx.conf file. The output you’re seeing is a result of permission issues, specifically because you’re running the command as a regular user instead of a super-user (root).

The errors you’re getting from nginx -t are expected because:

  1. NGINX, when running, needs to be able to read its configuration files. Some of these files, especially those in /etc/nginx/, are owned by the root user and prevent regular users from reading them. When you run nginx -t as a regular user, the command fails because it can’t access /etc/nginx/conf.d/botblocker-nginx-settings.conf, thus the “Permission denied” error.

  2. The “user” directive: The user www-data; directive at the top of your nginx.conf file specifies which user NGINX will run as after it starts up. The master process, which starts everything, needs super-user privileges to drop down to this less-privileged user (www-data). Since you’re not running the command with sudo, you’re not a super-user, so NGINX warns you that the directive will be ignored because you don’t have the permissions to execute it.

When you run sudo nginx -t, you are running the command with super-user privileges. This allows NGINX to bypass the permission restrictions and read all the necessary configuration files, so the test runs successfully.

3

Thank You very much for Your information, I am always very glad not to change anything if not needed.

Jens

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