Nginx On Ubuntu 18.04


Nginx On Ubuntu 18.04

What is Nginx?

Nginx is a free, open-source, high-performance web server software. It is known for its stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption. Nginx can be used as a web server for static and dynamic content, reverse proxy, load balancer, and HTTP cache.

Nginx is used by many popular websites, such as Netflix, WordPress, GitHub, and Reddit. It is one of the most popular web servers in the world, and is used by more than 30% of the top 10 million websites.

In this guide, we will cover how to install Nginx on Ubuntu 18.04.

Requirements

This guide assumes that you have a freshly installed Ubuntu 18.04 server instance. You must have administrative (root) access to the server to install Nginx and configure it.

Updating the server

Before we start, it is a good idea to update the system packages. You can do this by running the following command:

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Installing Nginx

Now that the server is up-to-date, we can install Nginx. Ubuntu includes Nginx in its default repositories. We can install it by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install nginx

Once the installation is complete, the Nginx service will start automatically. You can check its status by running the following command:

sudo systemctl status nginx

If the service is running, you will see the following output:

● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since [date]

Configuring Nginx

Once the installation is complete, you can configure Nginx to your liking. The main configuration file is located at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf Don’t forget to restart Nginx after making changes to the configuration file by running the following command: sudo systemctl restart nginx.

By default, Nginx will listen on port 80 and serve documents from the /var/www/html directory. This directory contains a single html file (index.html) with a simple “Welcome to Nginx” message. Feel free to modify the contents of this file to customize your web server.

Allowing Access to Nginx

By default, Nginx will only accept connections from the local machine. If you want to allow access from other computers, you will need to edit the /etc/nginx/sites-available/default file. In this file, find the following line:

listen 80 default_server;

Change this line to:

listen 80;

Also, find the following line:

allow 127.0.0.1;

Add your IP address to this line to allow access from your computer:

allow [YOUR_IP_ADDRESS];

Save the file and restart Nginx by running the following command:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Testing Nginx

To test the Nginx installation, open your web browser and type the following URL:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP_ADDRESS/

You should see the default “Welcome to Nginx” page. If you see it, then your Nginx installation is working correctly.

Conclusion

In this guide, we have shown you how to install and configure Nginx on Ubuntu 18.04. For more information on Nginx, please refer to the official Nginx documentation.

FAQs

Q: What is Nginx?

A: Nginx is a free, open-source, high-performance web server software.

Q: Where is Nginx configuration file located?

A: The main configuration file is located at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Q: How to restart Nginx?

A: You can restart Nginx by running the following command: sudo systemctl restart nginx.

Thank you for reading this article. Please read our other articles for more information.

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