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Installing Nginx on Ubuntu

Nginx is a popular web server that is known for its high performance, reliability, and scalability. It is commonly used to serve static content, proxy requests to application servers, and load balance traffic. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps of installing Nginx on Ubuntu.

Prerequisites​

Before we begin, make sure that you have a fresh Ubuntu server instance up and running. You will need to have root access to the server or a user account with sudo privileges.

Step 1: Update the System​

The first step is to update the system to ensure that we have the latest packages and security updates. To do this, run the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

This command will update the package list and upgrade any packages that have newer versions available.

Step 2: Install Nginx​

Once the system is up to date, we can proceed to install Nginx. To do this, run the following command:

sudo apt install nginx

This will install Nginx along with its dependencies.

Step 3: Start Nginx​

After installing Nginx, it should start automatically. However, if it does not start, you can start it manually by running the following command:

sudo systemctl start nginx

To check if Nginx is running, you can run the following command:

sudo systemctl status nginx

This will show you the status of the Nginx service.

Step 4: Configure Nginx​

By default, Nginx is configured to serve content from the /var/www/html directory. You can replace this with your own content by editing the /etc/nginx/sites-available/default file.

For example, if you want to serve content from the /home/user/mywebsite directory, you can edit the file as follows:

server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen [::]:80 default_server;

    root /home/user/mywebsite;
    index index.html;

    server_name _;

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

This configuration sets the root directory to /home/user/mywebsite and serves the index.html file by default.

Once you have made your changes, save the file and restart Nginx by running the following command:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 5: Test Nginx​

To test if Nginx is working properly, you can open your web browser and navigate to your server's IP address. You should see the default Nginx welcome page.

If you see the Nginx welcome page, then congratulations! You have successfully installed and configured Nginx on Ubuntu.

Conclusion​

In this tutorial, we walked you through the steps of installing Nginx on Ubuntu. We also showed you how to configure Nginx and test if it is working properly. Nginx is a powerful web server that can be used to serve static content, proxy requests to application servers, and load balance traffic. We hope this tutorial was helpful.