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Table of Contents
Introduction
Nginx is one of the most popular web servers in the world and is responsible for hosting some of the largest and highest-traffic sites on the internet. It is more resource-friendly than Apache in most cases and can be used as a web server or reverse proxy.
In this guide, we'll explain how to install Nginx on your Ubuntu 20.04 server. For a more detailed version of this tutorial, please refer to How To Install Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04.
Step 1 – Installing Nginx
Because Nginx is available in Ubuntu's default repositories, you can install it using the apt packaging system.
Update your local package index:
sudo apt update
Install Nginx:
sudo apt install nginx
Step 2 – Adjusting the Firewall
If you followed the prerequisite server setup tutorial, then you have the UFW firewall enabled. Check the available ufw application profiles with the following command:
sudo ufw app list
[secondary_label Output]
Available applications:
Nginx Full
Nginx HTTP
Nginx HTTPS
OpenSSH
Let's enable the most restrictive profile that will still allow the traffic you've configured, permitting traffic on port 80:
sudo ufw allow 'Nginx HTTP'
Verify the change:
sudo ufw status
[secondary_label 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 3 – Checking your Web Server
Check with the systemd init system to make sure the service is running by typing:
systemctl status nginx
[secondary_label Output]
nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset:>
Active: active (running) since Mon 2020-05-04 22:45:26 UTC; 1min 17s ago
Docs: man:nginx(8)
Main PID: 13255 (nginx)
Tasks: 2 (limit: 1137)
Memory: 4.6M
CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
├─13255 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master>
└─13256 nginx: worker process
Access the default Nginx landing page to confirm that the software is running properly through your IP address:
http://<^>your_server_ip<^>
You should receive the default Nginx landing page:
Step 4 – Setting Up Server Blocks (Recommended)
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. We will set up a domain called your_domain, but you should replace this with your own domain name. To learn more about setting up a domain name with the cloud provider, please refer to our Introduction to DNS hosting.
Create the directory for <^>your_domain<^>, using the -p flag to create any necessary parent directories:
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/<^>your_domain<^>/html
Assign ownership of the directory:
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/<^>your_domain<^>/html
The permissions of your web roots should be correct if you haven't modified your umask value, but you can make sure by typing:
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/<^>your_domain<^>
Create a sample index.html page using nano or your favorite editor:
nano /var/www/<^>your_domain<^>/html/index.html
Inside, add the following sample HTML:
[label /var/www/your_domain/html/index.html]
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to <^>your_domain<^>!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Success! The <^>your_domain<^> server block is working!</h1>
</body>
</html>
Save and close the file when you are finished.
Make a new server block at /etc/nginx/sites-available/<^>your_domain<^>:
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/<^>your_domain<^>
Paste in the following configuration block, updated for our new directory and domain name:
[label /etc/nginx/sites-available/your_domain]
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/<^>your_domain<^>/html;
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name <^>your_domain<^> www.<^>your_domain<^>;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
}
Save and close the file when you are finished.
Enable the file by creating a link from it to the sites-enabled directory:
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/<^>your_domain<^> /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
Two server blocks are now enabled and configured to respond to requests based on their listen and server_name directives:
your_domain: Will respond to requests foryour_domainandwww.your_domain.
default: Will respond to any requests on port80that do not match the other two blocks.
To avoid a possible hash bucket memory problem that can arise from adding additional server names, it is necessary to adjust a single value in the /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file. Open the file:
sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
Find the server_names_hash_bucket_size directive and remove the # symbol to uncomment the line:
[label /etc/nginx/nginx.conf]
...
http {
...
server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
...
}
...
Test for syntax errors:
sudo nginx -t
Restart Nginx to enable your changes:
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Nginx should now be serving your domain name. You can test this by navigating to http://<^>your_domain<^>, where you should receive something like this:
Conclusion
Now that you have your web server installed, you have many options for the type of content to serve and the technologies you want to use to create a richer experience.
If you'd like to build out a more complete application stack, check out this article on how to configure a LEMP stack on Ubuntu 20.04.
