Set up nginx webserver for OpenEMS UI

This chapter explains how to set up the nginx webserver for OpenEMS UI.

1. Quick setup under Linux

These instructions are intended for a quick setup, e.g. to get started with OpenEMS UI. Instructions for a production deployment may be added in the future.

1.1. Setup

We assume that the files for OpemEMS UI are in /home/user/openems/openems-ui

  1. Install nginx (e.g. apt install nginx on Debian / Ubuntu and derivatives)

  2. Create a file /etc/nginx/conf.d/openems_nginx.conf with the following contents:

    server {
    listen 4200;
    server_name openems;
    # OpenEMS Web-Interface
    location / {
       root    /home/user/openems/openems-ui;
       index    index.html index.htm;

       error_page    404    300    /index.html;
    }
}

  3. Start nginx. See man nginx and the documentation on https://nginx.org for more information.

OpenEMS UI should now be available on port 4200.

1.2. Troubleshooting

  1. If there are error messages saying that port 80 is already used, e.g. by another webserver already running on your machine: Remove /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default. This is a link to /etc/nginx/sites-available/default where port 80 is configured to be used.

  2. If the browser shows “403 forbidden”, this may be due to missing permissions. nginx needs read and execute permissions on all directories on the path to the openems-ui directory. You can check this with the command namei -l /home/user/openems/openems-ui. For example, /home/user might have “rwx” permissions only for user. In that case, the command chmod a+rx /home/user changes the permissions, so that nginx can run openems-ui.