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Install Nginx on Ubuntu 16.04

Useful reference

Install Nginx

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx

Adjust the Firewall

List applications:

sudo ufw app list

To allow only port 80:

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx HTTP'

Verify the change:

sudo ufw status

Check your Web Server

Check the systemd init system to make sure the service is running:

systemctl status nginx

Check from a browser:

<your-ip>

and should see Nginx page

Manage the Nginx Process

To stop your web server

sudo systemctl stop nginx

To start the web server

sudo systemctl start nginx

To restart the service

sudo systemctl restart nginx

If you are simply making configuration changes, Nginx can often reload without dropping connections.

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

sudo systemctl disable nginx

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

sudo systemctl enable nginx

Important Nginx Files and Directories

Content

- /var/www/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/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 (see below). Typically, 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. Typically, 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.

Configure Nginx

sudo vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;

events {
  worker_connections 768;
  # multi_accept on;
}

http {

##
# Basic Settings
##

  server_tokens off;
  include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
  default_type application/octet-stream;

  charset_types text/css text/plain text/vnd.wap.wml application/javascript application/json application/rss+xml application/xml;

  keepalive_timeout 65;
  sendfile on;
  tcp_nopush on;
  tcp_nodelay on;
  types_hash_max_size 2048;
# server_tokens off;

  server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
# server_name_in_redirect off;

##
# SSL Settings
##
  ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

##
# Logging Settings
##

  access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
  error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

##
# Gzip Settings
##

  gzip on;
  gzip_comp_level 6;
  gzip_min_length 256;
  gzip_proxied any;
  gzip_vary on;

  gzip_disable "msie6";
  gzip_buffers 16 8k;
  gzip_http_version 1.1;

  gzip_types
    application/atom+xml
    application/javascript
    application/json
    application/ld+json
    application/manifest+json
    application/rss+xml
    application/vnd.geo+json
    application/vnd.ms-fontobject
    application/x-font-ttf
    application/x-web-app-manifest+json
    application/xhtml+xml
    application/xml
    font/opentype
    image/bmp
    image/svg+xml
    image/x-icon
    text/cache-manifest
    text/css
    text/plain
    text/vcard
    text/vnd.rim.location.xloc
    text/vtt
    text/x-component
    text/x-cross-domain-policy;

##
# Virtual Host Configs
##

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}

Advanced Nginx Configuration

Clone to /home/jv/h5bp

cd /home/jv
git clone https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-nginx.git h5bp
cd /home/jv/h5bp
rm -rf .git

Copy to Nginx

cd /home/jv/h5bp
sudo cp -r h5bp /etc/nginx

Restart Nginx:

sudo systemctl restart nginx