How to deploy nginx without root access?

Question

Recently I rented a web server at a certain company. I have ssh access but no root privileges. They don't excpect users to actually use ssh the main way of deploying is ftp or some cms/clickibunti. The OS if FreeBSD and they have a Python installation(2.7.8).

I downloaded virtualenv, Django and gunicorn (installed in the home directory and the virtualenv). I deployed the bootstrap Django app with the development server on 0.0.0.0:8000 which works fine. They deleted pkg and ports (packagemanagers) so I build nginx from source (installed into the /home/myuser/urs/local/bin/).

Now I'm stuck.

How do I deploy nginx without root access? Is this possible? I only have (write)access to /home/myuser/.

Disclaimer: They have a cash return policy so I'm not too concerned. But I have some free time and this seems like a nice problem to master.

Answer 1

Install it into your home directory, and change the config so it uses a port higher than 1024:

$ ./configure --prefix=/home/steve/nginx
$ make && make install
$ cd ~/nginx
$ vi conf/nginx.conf 

Change:

server {
    listen       80;

to:

server {
    listen       8080;

Then start it:

$ ./sbin/nginx

$ netstat -na | grep 8080
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8080            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN