nginxctl

A CLI tool for setting up nginx as a reverse proxy and configuring SSL via Let's Encrypt. Runs as a guided wizard — no config file editing required.

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hardope/nginxctl/master/install.sh | sudo bash

Or download a binary directly from Releases:

sudo curl -fsSL https://github.com/hardope/nginxctl/releases/latest/download/nginxctl-linux-amd64 \
  -o /usr/local/bin/nginxctl && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/nginxctl

Use nginxctl-linux-arm64 for ARM-based servers (AWS Graviton, etc.)

Usage

All commands require root:

Full setup wizard

Installs nginx if needed, writes a reverse-proxy config, and optionally sets up SSL.

sudo nginxctl setup

Prompts for:

• Upstream URL (e.g. http://localhost:3000)
• Domain(s) (e.g. example.com www.example.com)
• Max upload size (default: 100M)

Shows the generated config for review before writing anything. Creates a timestamped backup of any existing config before overwriting.

Add SSL to an existing config

sudo nginxctl ssl

Prompts for the path to your existing nginx config and your domain(s), verifies DNS A records point to this server, then runs certbot.

What gets configured

The generated nginx config includes:

• WebSocket support (Upgrade, Connection headers)
• Standard forwarding headers (X-Real-IP, X-Forwarded-For, X-Forwarded-Proto)
• Configurable client_max_body_size
• Long-lived connection timeout (proxy_read_timeout 86400s)
• proxy_buffering off
• HTTP → HTTPS redirect (after SSL is set up)

DNS verification

Before running certbot, the tool resolves each domain's A record and compares it to the server's public IP. If any domain doesn't match, you'll see which ones failed and can choose to abort or proceed anyway.

Supported systems

Distro	Package manager
Ubuntu / Debian	apt
CentOS / RHEL / Rocky / AlmaLinux / Fedora	dnf

Building from source

Requires Go 1.21+.

git clone https://github.com/hardope/nginxctl.git
cd nginxctl
go build -o nginxctl .
sudo mv nginxctl /usr/local/bin/

Releasing

Push a v* tag to trigger a GitHub Actions build that cross-compiles for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 and publishes the binaries to GitHub Releases.

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0