How to start nginx via different port(other than 80)

Question

You have to go to the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ and if this is the default configuration, then there should be a file by name: default.

Edit that file by defining your desired port; in the snippet below, we are serving the Nginx instance on port 81.

server {
    listen 81;
}

To start the server, run the command line below;

sudo service nginx start

You may now access your application on port 81 (for localhost, http://localhost:81).

You will need to change the configure port of either Apache or Nginx. After you do this you will need to restart the reconfigured servers, using the 'service' command you used.

---

Apache

Edit

sudo subl /etc/apache2/ports.conf 

and change the 80 on the following line to something different :

Listen 80

If you just change the port or add more ports here, you will likely also have to change the VirtualHost statement in

sudo subl /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

and change the 80 on the following line to something different :

<VirtualHost *:80>

then restart by :

sudo service apache2 restart

---

Nginx

Edit

/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

and change the 80 on the following line :

listen 80;

then restart by :

sudo service nginx restart

Follow this: Open your config file

vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

Change port number on which you are listening;

listen       81;
server_name  localhost;

Add a rule to iptables

 vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables 
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 81 -j ACCEPT

Restart IPtables

 service iptables restart;

Restart the nginx server

service nginx restart

Access yr nginx server files on port 81

If you are on windows then below port related server settings are present in file nginx.conf at < nginx installation path >/conf folder.

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;
....

Change the port number and restart the instance.

If you are experiencing this problem when using Docker be sure to map the correct port numbers. If you map port 81:80 when running docker (or through docker-compose.yml), your nginx must listen on port 80 not 81, because docker does the mapping already.

I spent quite some time on this issue myself, so hope it can be to some help for future googlers.