This is the recommended sequence to get HSS up-and-running quickly and easily.

Please take the time to read the material on these website pages and to perform the steps in the sequence 1 through to 4.

1. Requirements
    This section explains about networks, the extra nodes you need to install for Node-RED and some guidance on
    cameras that work well with HSS.

2. NGINX  <<< You are here
    This section explains how to install NGINX, a web server, if you haven’t got one already running on your computer.

3. Install
    This section is a step-by-step guide for the installation sequence of HSS (using the out-of-the box config file)

4. Config file
    This section is a detailed step-by-step guide, explaining how to customise HSS to accept your cameras, etc..

NGINX
This section is optional. If you already have Apache2 running as a server on your computer and you are using it to serve web pages or other material, then you can skip this section.

If you have Apache2 installed and you are NOT using it, then you might want to consider changing it for NGINX.

NGINX is a lightweight, high performance server ideally suited to tasks like handling requests from HSS.

If you decide to use NGINX, then you need you need to STOP Apache2 and DISABLE it.

Disable Apache2 and stop it from auto-starting at boot time.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
sudo systemctl disable apache2

This gives you the option that you could restart Apache2 if in the future you wanted to revert back to using it.

Alternatively, you could change the port Apache2 is using to say 81 or 82 and let NGINX run on port 80.

If you really do want to REMOVE Apache2 then use the commands...

sudo apt-get purge apache2*
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo rm -rf /etc/apache2

or

sudo apt-get --purge remove apache2
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo rm -rf /etc/apache2

Installing NGINX

Step 1. Bring your Pi up-to-date.

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

Step 2. Install NGINX and PHP.

sudo apt install  nginx  php-fpm  php7.4-fpm  php7.4-gd
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx start

Step 3. Check if NGNIX is running.

Go to your Pi's URL e.g. 192.168.1.152

You should see a web page saying... Apache2 Debian Default Page

Don't worry if it says Apache2 as this is just a default page.

Step 4. Enable PHP in NGINX.

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available

sudo nano default

Find the line that starts with index and change it to this...

index  index.php  index.html  index.htm;

Scroll down further and remove the # characters in the location block so the lines looks like this...

   location ~ \.php$ {

       include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

   #

   #       # With php-fpm (or other unix sockets):

       fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;

   #       # With php-cgi (or other tcp sockets):

   #       fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;

    }

   Press Control and X and then Y (to save the edited file).

Step 5. Reload NGINX configuration file.

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx reload

Step 6. Test that PHP will interpret a PHP script by creating a new PHP script.

cd /var/www/html                            <<< It is assumed that this is the document_root as setup by NGINX

sudo nano info.php

<?php  
    echo phpinfo();
?>

Press Control and X and then Y (to save the edited file).

When you execute the file you have just created it will show the various parameters used by the web server

Step 7. Check if the server runs the PHP script you have just created.

Go to your Pi's URL e.g. 192.168.1.152/info.php

You should see a page listing all the parameters for the PHP interpreter and web server.

Step 8. Add the pi user to group labelled www-data

Note:
Replace <insert-user-name> with your user-name.
If you are logged-in with the default user-name then it will be… pi

sudo usermod -a -G www-data <insert-user-name>
e.g.  sudo usermod -a -G www-data pi

Step 9. Secure the area where the server will serve files.

sudo chown -R <insert-user-name>:www-data /var/www/html
e.g.  sudo chown -R pi:www-data /var/www/html

sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/html

Step 10. Set-up NGINX so it auto-starts whenever the Pi is booted-up.

sudo systemctl enable nginx
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

The next step is to get HSS (Node-RED flows) installed on your computer.

Go to…    3. Install