Nginx Service Guide

Nginx is a high-performance HTTP and reverse proxy server, widely used for static site hosting, reverse proxying and load balancing.

Installing Nginx

On Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

On CentOS/RHEL

sudo yum install nginx

Starting and Managing Nginx

sudo systemctl start nginx
sudo systemctl enable nginx
sudo systemctl status nginx

Reload configuration without downtime:

sudo nginx -s reload

Test configuration before reloading:

sudo nginx -t

Configuration Structure

• Main configuration file: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
• Site configurations: /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf or /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*

Hosting a Static Site

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;

    root /var/www/site;
    index index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }
}

Reverse Proxy

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name api.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    }
}

Common Practices

• Use nginx -t to validate configuration before reloading
• Enable gzip compression for static assets
• Set proper cache headers for static resources