How to Remove Nginx from Ubuntu

The tutorial guides on how to delete, purge or reinstall Nginx from Ubuntu 20.04/18.04 systems. The ‘apt remove’ command removes the Nginx software, retaining configuration files, while ‘apt purge’ deletes the software and all associated files. For reinstallation, ‘apt reinstall’ is used, which doesn’t alter or delete any configuration files.

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to remove Nginx and purge from Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04.

There are two ways to uninstall or remove programs from Ubuntu and Linux systems.

You can either run the apt remove or apt purge.

When you use the remove option with apt, the command will delete the software package from the system but leave the configuration files behind. Purge with apt will delete the software package, including all configuration files and settings.

Learning to remove Nginx from Ubuntu can be useful if you’re a webmaster and want to uninstall the Nginx web server from your host. Sometimes, you may need to remove Nginx to reinstall it or replace it with a different web server.

Knowing the proper steps to remove Nginx can help you avoid any issues or conflicts arising during the process. Additionally, removing Nginx can free up system resources and improve the performance of your Ubuntu system.

When you want to delete Nginx from Ubuntu, follow the steps below:

Remove Nginx

Again, running apt with the remove option will delete Nginx from the host computer but keep all configuration files intact.

If you think of removing Nginx to reinstall, you may want to use the purge option.

If you simply want to remove the Nginx package but critical all configuration files, then run the commands below:

sudo apt remove nginx

The commands above delete Nginx, but site configuration files in the /etc/nginx directory are left alone, including the content directory at /var/www.

Purge Nginx

The purge option with apt will delete Nginx and all configuration files from Ubuntu.

If you want to delete Nginx, including configuration files and settings, use the purge option.

The files in /etc/nginx directory will be removed. However, the site content at /var/www will be left alone.

Run the commands below to remove Nginx along with its configuration files.

sudo apt purge nginx

Reinstall Nginx

The command will delete Nginx and install when you use the reinstall option with apt.

The reinstall option won’t change or delete any configuration file or the site content at /var/www.

It will simply delete and reinstall the Nginx packages.

To reinstall Nginx, run the commands below:

sudo apt reinstall nginx

That should do it!

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to delete, purge, or reinstall Nginx. If you find any error above, please use the comment form below to report.

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Comments

  1. Priyank Upadhyay Avatar
    Priyank Upadhyay

    sudo apt purge nginx
    sudo apt remove nginx
    above two commands alone can’t remove nginx completly.
    for delete nginx completely use
    sudo apt autoremove nginx

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