How to reinstall nginx from source? (was installed with apt-get)

Question

I want to install this module.

The problem is it requires that nginx is installed from source. I have it installed via apt-get install, and it is already serving web pages.

So which steps would you follow to change from one to the other? If possible I would like them to use the same paths. In the example it uses /opt, but apt-get installed it in a different place (I see entries in /etc, /lib, /usr/bin, /usr/share).

Answer 1

The basic procedure is to remove the installed version, and then install the new one:

    sudo apt-get purge nginx

Now, download the source tar ball of what you want to install and extract it:

    wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.3.11.tar.gz
    tar xvvzf nginx-1.3.11.tar.gz 

The files you see in /etc and /lib are settings and service scripts and the like. They will be there no matter where you install nginx, apt installs nginx to /usr.

So, tell the included configure script to install in /usr:

cd nginx-1.3.11/
./configure --prefix=/usr

Then compile and install:

make
sudo make install