How to Install Nginx on Ubuntu Server & Setting Up Server Blocks.

Gabriella Bennett -

Step 1 – Installing Nginx

Nginx is available in Ubuntu’s default repositories, let us install it from these repositories using the apt packaging system. First, we will update our local package index so that we have access to the most recent package listings and install nginx right after:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install nginx

Step 2 – Checking your Web Server

At the end of the installation process, Ubuntu 20.04 should starts Nginx. The web server should already be up and running.

We can check with the systemd init system to make sure the service is running by typing:

systemctl status nginx

output

● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-01-20 15:17:29 UTC; 1 day 17h ago
       Docs: man:nginx(8)
    Process: 521332 ExecReload=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; -s reload>
   Main PID: 5205 (nginx)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 2102)
     CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
             ├─  5205 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process >
             ├─521344 nginx: worker process
             ├─521345 nginx: worker process
             ├─521346 nginx: worker process
             ├─521347 nginx: worker process
             └─521348 nginx: cache manager process

Press q to exit the service status.

Step 3 – Adjusting the Firewall

Before testing Nginx, the firewall software needs to be adjusted to allow access to the service. Nginx registers itself as a service with ufw upon installation, making it straightforward to allow Nginx access.

List the application configurations that ufw knows how to work with by typing:

sudo ufw app list

You should get a listing of the application profiles:

output

Available applications:
  Apache
  Apache Full
  Apache Secure
  Nginx Full
  Nginx HTTP
  Nginx HTTPS
  OpenSSH
  Postfix
  Postfix SMTPS
  Postfix Submission

As you can see by the output, there are three profiles available for Nginx:

  • Nginx Full: This profile opens both port 80 (normal, unencrypted web traffic) and port 443 (TLS/SSL encrypted traffic)
  • Nginx HTTP: This profile opens only port 80 (normal, unencrypted web traffic)
  • Nginx HTTPS: This profile opens only port 443 (TLS/SSL encrypted traffic)

It is recommended that you enable the most restrictive profile that will still allow the traffic you’ve configured. For now, since we are not on an encrypted server, we will only allow the Nginx HTTP profile that will allow traffic on port 80.
We enable this by typing:

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx HTTP'

reload the firewall for the changes to persist.

sudo ufw reload

check the status of the firewall to verify the profiles that have been allowed.

output

Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
OpenSSH                    ALLOW       Anywhere                  
Nginx HTTP                 ALLOW       Anywhere                  
OpenSSH (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
Nginx HTTP (v6)            ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

Step 4 – Testing the Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04

On your browser’s URL field, enter your server’s IP address or domain name and hit ENTER.

http://server-IP or domain-name

You should get a default Nginx welcome page as below, your server is running correctly and is ready to be managed.

Step 5 – Managing the Nginx Process

To stop your web server, type:

sudo systemctl stop nginx

To start the webserver when it is stopped, type:

sudo systemctl stop nginx

To stop and then start the service again, type:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

If you are only making configuration changes, Nginx can reload without dropping connections, type:

sudo systemctl reload nginx

By default, Nginx is configured to start automatically when the server boots. If this is not what you want, you can disable this behavior by typing:

sudo systemctl disable nginx

To re-enable the service to start up at boot, type:

sudo systemctl enable nginx

Step 6 – Setting Up Server Blocks

When using the Nginx web server, server blocks (similar to virtual hosts in Apache) can be used to encapsulate configuration details and host more than one domain from a single server. For the purposes of this guide, we will make a Server Block for domain_test1.com and another for domain_test2.com

Step 6.1 - Create Directories and Set Permissions

Let’s create two new directories in the /var/www/ directory for our two domains.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/domain_test1.com/public_html

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/domain_test2.com/public_html

Next, assign ownership of the directory with the $USER environment variable:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/domain_test1.com/public_html

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/domain_test2.com/public_html

The $USER variable will take the value of the user you are currently logged in as.

To ensure that your permissions are correct and allow the owner to read, write, and execute the files while granting only read and execute permissions to groups and others, you can input the following command:

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www

Step 6.2 - Create Test Web Pages

Let us now create a very simple index.html web page for each domain using using nano or your favorite editor:

test1

sudo nano /var/www/domain_test1.com/public_html/index.html

test2

sudo nano /var/www/domain_test2.com/public_html/index.html

Inside, add the following sample HTML to both:

<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to domain_test1!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Success! The domain_test1 server block is working!</h1>
</body>
</html>

Save and close the file by typing CTRL and X then Y and ENTER when you are done.

Step 6.3 - Create Server Blocks

In order for Nginx to serve this content, it’s necessary to create a server block with the correct directives. Instead of modifying the default configuration file directly, let’s make two new one.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/domain_test1

AND

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/domain_test2

Paste in the following configuration block, updated for our new directory and domain name:

   server {
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80;
        
   root /var/www/domain_test1.com/public_html/index.html;
    index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

    server_name domain_test1.com www.domain_test1.com;

    location / {
            try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

Save and exit (press CTRL + X, press Y and then press ENTER)

Ensure the Nginx config file syntax is valid before continuing to the next step.

sudo nginx -t

OUTPUT

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

Now, let’s enable symbolic links from the sites-available directory to the sites-enabled directory, which Nginx reads from during startup:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/domain_test1.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

AND

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/domain_test2.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

We can also remove the symbolic link for the default server block.

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Restart Nginx.

sudo systemctl nginx restart

Nginx should now be serving your domain name. You can test this by navigating to the domain_test1.com or domain_test2.com

Step 7 - Important Nginx Files and Directories

Now that you know how to manage the Nginx service itself, you should take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with a few important directories and files.

Content

  • /var/www/public_html: The actual web content, which by default only consists of the default Nginx page you saw earlier, is served out of the /var/www/public_html directory. This can be changed by altering Nginx configuration files.

Server Configuration

  • /etc/nginx: The Nginx configuration directory. All of the Nginx configuration files reside here.
  • /etc/nginx/nginx.conf: The main Nginx configuration file. This can be modified to make changes to the Nginx global configuration.
  • /etc/nginx/sites-available/: The directory where per-site server blocks can be stored. Nginx will not use the configuration files found in this directory unless they are linked to the sites-enabled directory. Basically, all server block configuration is done in this directory and then enabled by linking to the other directory.
  • /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/: The directory where enabled per-site server blocks are stored. Basically, these are created by linking to configuration files found in the sites-available directory.
  • /etc/nginx/snippets: This directory contains configuration fragments that can be included elsewhere in the Nginx configuration. Potentially repeatable configuration segments are good candidates for refactoring into snippets.

Server Logs

  • /var/log/nginx/access.log: Every request to your web server is recorded in this log file unless Nginx is configured to do otherwise.
  • /var/log/nginx/error.log: Any Nginx errors will be recorded in this log.

Thanks for reading.
And have yourself a great day!