Use nginx to call shell script - simplest way?

[John Moore]

I have a Java web application which, once in a while for reasons I am 
trying to determine, sometimes becomes unresponsive. I want to give 
users a simple way of restarting it, via the web, so as I've used ngix a 
lot in the past, my first thoughts turned to having nginx running on 
another port, with a URL available which causes a shell script to be 
run. What would be the easiest, most lightweight, way to do this? Or is 
there some other way of effecting what I want which I haven't thought of 
yet?