How To Install Nginx With Ngx_Pagespeed Module on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install and configure Nginx with the ngx_pagespeed module on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, PageSpeed (ngx_pagespeed) is an Nginx module created by Google to help Make the Web Faster by rewriting web pages to reduce latency and bandwidth. For the installation, we will need to compile Nginx from the source with the PageSpeed module, as Nginx doesn’t support Dynamic module loading (DSO) unless you want to build your own rpm or deb files.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Nginx with a page speed module on a Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• An active internet connection.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Nginx With Ngx_Pagespeed Module on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 2. Installing Nginx.

Add the Nginx signing key and the Nginx repository to the Ubuntu system by running the following commands:

wget http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key
sudo apt-key add nginx_signing.key
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ $(lsb_release -cs) nginx" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/Nginx.list'
sudo apt-get update

Then, install Nginx with the ngx_pagespeed module using the following command below:

sudo apt-get install nginx nginx-module-pagespeed

Verify installation:

nginx -V 2>&1 | grep PageSpeed

After the installation is complete, start the Nginx service by running the following commands:

sudo service nginx restart
sudo service nginx status

Step 3. Configure ngx_pagespeed module.

First, open the Nginx configuration file using the following command:

nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Find the following line in the configuration file:

#pagespeed on;

Uncomment the line by removing the ‘#’ character to enable the ngx_pagespeed module:

pagespeed on;

Save and close the file, then restart the Nginx service to take change effect:

sudo service nginx restart

Congratulations! You have successfully installed nginx pagespeed. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Nginx with ngx_pagespeed module on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS  (Xenial Xerus) system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Nginx website.

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