inginx 0.3.1

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Inginx

Nginx is a really powerful software, but it requires non-trivial configuration and its own working directory. Command-line configuration is possible but verbose.

This utility creates a temporary working directory and assembles an Nginx configuration optimized for common use cases.

The name “inginx” is derived from “instant Nginx”

Examples

Serve file system

Serve a directory ./dir on 8787

inginx --serve ./dir --listen 0.0.0.0:8787

Output:

Running /usr/bin/freenginx in /tmp/tmpu8151mtc
127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2025:11:18:50 +0200] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 263 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:141.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/141.0"
....

Reverse proxy

Start a reverse proxy up to https://echo.free.beeceptor.com on 8080

inginx --reverse https://echo.free.beeceptor.com --listen 0.0.0.0:8080

Output:

Running /usr/bin/freenginx in /tmp/tmpo66xmvm_
127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2025:11:21:03 +0200] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 844 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:141.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/141.0"
...

Common Flags

• --serve <directory> - Serve a local filesystem directory

• --reverse <remote> - Set up a reverse proxy

• --listen <address[:port]> - Tell Nginx what address/port to use

Installation

This is a self-contained script that has no dependencies. It is aiming to work on as old Python as 3.7.

Managed installation (uvx, pipx)

Ideal solution, but needs uvx, or pipx pre-installed This is the most painless solution

uvx inginx --help

pipx install inginx
inginx --help

pip

pip install --user inginx --break-system-packages

[!WARNING] This is generally not recommended. It will work and not break anything in this case because inginx does not have any dependencies.

Manual

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/richard-hajek/inginx/refs/heads/main/inginx/inginx.py -O ~/.local/bin
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/inginx

[!WARNING] Check that ~/.local/bin is in your path by doing echo $PATH and checking, with your eyes, if '.local/bin' is there If not, good luck, have fun, see https://askubuntu.com/questions/440691/add-a-binary-to-my-path for detailed instructions how to manage your $PATH

Advanced configuration

This tool is not indended for advanced configuration. It will however provide you with a good starting point. If you want to further customize the nginx instance, do

mkdir ./prefix
cd ./prefix
inginx <your configuration> --dry > nginx.conf

and then make any changes you want to the generated nginx.conf

And run your nginx with

freenginx -p $(realpath .) -c $(realpath ./nginx.conf)