Centos 7 Nginx Multiple Websites


Centos 7 Nginx Multiple Websites

Introduction

Are you looking for a way to set up multiple websites on your CentOS 7 server utilizing the Nginx web server? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll detail the steps necessary for setting up multiple websites on a single server using the Nginx web server.

Requirements

To complete this guide, you should have an existing CentOS 7 server with Nginx already installed and configured. You should also have all requirements necessary to set up a website with Nginx met. See the guide How to Install and Set Up Nginx on CentOS 7 for more details.

Create Directories for the New Websites

The first step to setting up multiple websites is to create a new directory for each website. This is because Nginx bases its configuration off of the directory in which files are stored. In this guide, our starting path will be the /var/www/ directory, as this is where all websites should ideally be stored.

Using the sudo command create a matching directory with the same name you intend to use for your website (i.e. mywebsite.com). Replace “mywebsite.com” with the name of the directory you wish to create:

$ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/mywebsite.com

Assign the Proper Ownership to Directories

Once you’ve created the directory for your website, you should now assign the proper ownership. This is because if the wrong person or group owns the website directory, Nginx will not be able to serve content from it. This can cause major problems for your website.

In general, you should assign ownership to the user account that the Nginx web server is running under. To determine which account this is, use the following command:

$ ps -ef | grep nginx

Create a Sample Page

It’s time to test our setup. To do this, you’ll need to create a sample page so that you can assess whether your configuration will work correctly or not. To do this, you’ll need to create a index.html file in each website’s directory.

Make sure to use the proper file path (i.e. /var/www/mywebsite.com/index.html). Replace “mywebsite.com” with the name of the directory you created previously:

$ sudo touch /var/www/mywebsite.com/index.html

Configure the Nginx Server Block

Now that you’ve created the directories for your websites and assigned proper ownership, it’s time to configure the Nginx server block for each website. To do this, you’ll need to create a new configuration file in the /etc/nginx/conf.d/ directory.

Create a file with the same name of the directory you created previously (i.e. mywebsite.com.conf ) and paste the following configuration into it:

server {
listen 80;
server_name www.mywebsite.com;
root /var/www/mywebsite.com;
index index.html;
}

Reload Nginx to Activate the Server Blocks

Once you’ve created the Nginx server blocks, you’ll need to reload Nginx for the changes to take effect. To do this, use the following command:

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx

Testing the Setup

To test the setup, you’ll need to open a web browser and navigate to the websites you’ve configured. Use the IP address of your Nginx server to access the websites (i.e. http://127.0.0.1). If everything is configured correctly, you should see the sample page you created earlier.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve outlined the steps necessary for setting up multiple websites on a single server using the Nginx web server. We’ve explained how to create the necessary directories and assign ownership, as well as create a sample page and configure the Nginx server blocks. After completing this guide, you should have a better understanding of how to set up multiple websites on a single server using Nginx.

FAQs

Q: What is Nginx?

A: Nginx is an open source web server that is commonly used to serve static content, such as images and HTML files. It is also used as a reverse proxy or load balancer to serve dynamic content, such as PHP or ASP.NET.

Q: What is a Server Block?

A: A Server Block is a configuration that is used to define how a server should handle requests for a particular domain. It contains information such as file paths, port numbers and domain names.

Q: What is the difference between Nginx and Apache?

A: The main difference between Nginx and Apache is that Nginx is event-driven and Apache is process-driven. This means that Nginx is better suited for handling multiple requests simultaneously, whereas Apache is better suited for running background processes such as cron jobs.

Thank you for reading this article. Please read other articles for detailed information and best practices.

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