lk/networking/website/nginx.md

title	tags
nginx	Documentation Networking

Install nginx:

sudo apt-get install nginx

sudo apt-get enable --now nginx

Put a website somewhere:

mkdir /var/www/html/mysite/

Put an index file there:

vim /var/www/html/mysite/index.html

Make the owner www-data

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/mysite/

Make a configuration file for nginx:

vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/mysite.conf

server {
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80;
        root /var/www/html/mysite;
        index index.html index.htm;
        server_name mysite.tk;

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

}

Make the site available:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/mysite.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Test it's working:

nginx -t

Troubleshooting

If it's not working, the error message ends with the line number of the problem in the .conf file. If the error message says '4', the error message is probably around line 4.

Check:

• Missing semicolons
• Very long website names
  • Fixing this requires uncommenting server_names_hash_bucket_size 64; in /etc/nginx.conf
  • If that doesn't work, try changing '64' in that line to '128'.

DNS

Buy some DNS online, then check it's working.

Once it's working, use certbot:

apt install certbot

You may need to install an nginx python module:

apt install python3-certbot-nginx

domain=example.com
my_email=me@posteo.uk
certbot --nginx -d "$domain" --non-interactive --agree-tos -m "$my_email"

When you are asked about redirecting from HTTP to HTTPS, say yes (option "2").

Renewal

Remember to renew the certificate every few months.

Multiple Sites

You can do this with any number of websites at the same time.