Getting started

Four steps, each reversible. Nothing touches your running server until step 4.

1. Install

One line. It detects your distribution, enrols the signed package repository and installs from it, so ordinary system upgrades keep working afterwards:

curl -fsSL https://xinproxy.com/install.sh | sh

Pass --dry-run to print every command it would execute without running any of them, or --product xin-gateway for the Kubernetes controller. The script is served as plain text — read it first if you like: xinproxy.com/install.sh.

Prefer to add the repository by hand? See Releases.

2. Read your existing configuration

xin's default configuration path is /etc/nginx/nginx.conf — the file you already have. This reads it in place, converts nothing, and writes nothing:

xind -t -c /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

A clean result looks like this:

xind: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
xind: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

That means xin has a complete interpretation of your configuration. If instead it refuses something, that is the product working — the refusal names the file, the line and the reason:

bad.conf: configuration failed:
bad.conf:2:15: limit_conn: limit_conn is not supported

Every problem is reported, not just the first, so one run tells you the whole distance between your config and a working xin. See Configuration compatibility for what is supported and what is refused.

3. Run it on a spare port

Before touching port 80, prove it serves. Copy your config, change the listen port, and run it in the foreground:

sed 's/listen 80;/listen 8080;/' /etc/nginx/nginx.conf > /tmp/xin-test.conf
xind -c /tmp/xin-test.conf

# in another shell
curl -sS -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1:8080/

Compare responses against your live server — headers included — until you are satisfied they match.

4. Cut over

xin and nginx both want port 80, so one has to stop before the other starts. That ordering is the whole cutover:

sudo systemctl stop nginx
sudo systemctl enable --now xin
systemctl status xin

Rolling back is the same two commands in the other order:

sudo systemctl stop xin
sudo systemctl start nginx

A host with no nginx at all

If there is no /etc/nginx/nginx.conf to read, the packages ship a minimal standalone config at /etc/xin/xin.conf. Nothing reads it unless you point at it — set XIN_CONF in /etc/default/xin (Debian) or /etc/sysconfig/xin (RPM) and restart the service.