Linux Administration Cookbook

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You might be wondering about using systemctl reload, and why I chose to use that instead of restart.

The answer should become clearer when we cat the systemd unit file for Nginx:

$ systemctl cat nginx | grep ReloadExecReload=/usr/sbin/nginx -g 'daemon on; master_process on;' -s reload

There's a specific ExecReload line that runs with the -s reload flag.

This sends the reload signal to Nginx (SIGHUP); that is, it's less disruptive to the running process.