Ravindra BagaleCourses & study guides मराठी Track your progress

Chapter 8: Configuring Nginx and Apache

By Last updated:

Friends, in Chapter 6 we installed Nginx and Apache, and in Chapter 7 we hosted our first sites by copy-pasting a server block. That was enough to get started, but in real projects you will be asked to change things – move the website to another folder, run it on another port, host three sites on one server, redirect www or hide the version number. Mauli Dairy, Pune (a fictional business, only for learning) now wants an admin panel and a blog along with the order site. In this chapter we open the config files and understand them line by line. Once you can read a config file comfortably, you will handle web servers with confidence. Come on, let's start!

What you will learn in this chapter

  • Where each config file lives
  • Reading an Nginx server block
  • Reading an Apache virtual host
  • Changing the document root
  • Running a site on another port
  • Many sites with virtual hosts
  • Redirects, versions, uploads
  • The safe change workflow
            Browser request:  GET /about.html   Host: site1.example.com   (port 80)
                                          |
                    +---------------------v----------------------+
                    |  1. Which listen port?     listen 80 / Listen 80
                    |  2. Which site?            server_name / ServerName (Host header)
                    |  3. Which folder?          root / DocumentRoot
                    |  4. Which file?            index / DirectoryIndex, location / <Directory>
                    +---------------------+----------------------+
                                          |
                               /var/www/site1/about.html  -->  200 OK

Every web server answers these four questions for every request. Once you know where each answer is written, you can configure any site.

Concepts in this chapter

  1. 8.1Where the configuration lives
  2. 8.2Reading an Nginx configuration
  3. 8.3Task: change the Nginx document root
  4. 8.4Reading an Apache configuration
  5. 8.5Task: change the Apache DocumentRoot
  6. 8.6Task: run a site on a different port
  7. 8.7Multiple sites with name-based virtual hosts
  8. 8.8Useful everyday configurations
  9. 8.9The safe change workflow
  10. 8.10Troubleshooting configuration problems

Review and practice

  1. ★Common Mistakes I See Students Make
  2. ★Interview Questions
  3. ★Practice Questions and Lab Exercises

Practice Tasks

About this scenario

Pandharpur Yatra Tours is a travel business in Pandharpur. Vitthal More looks after its IT and cloud work. They count money in INR and run their AWS resources in the ap-south-1 Region. In the tasks below you do real jobs for them using what this lesson teaches. All names, account IDs, IP addresses and numbers are made up for practice.

0 / 12

Easy Restart a service after a change

Why: Config changes only apply after the service restarts or reloads.

What to do: Restart the nginx service.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

Easy Check if a service is running

Why: When a site is down, first check whether the web server process is running.

What to do: Show the status of the httpd service.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

Easy Install a package on Ubuntu

Why: Ubuntu uses apt. Package names differ: on Ubuntu Apache is apache2.

What to do: Install the apache2 package on Ubuntu without being asked to confirm.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

Easy Install a package on Amazon Linux

Why: dnf is the package manager on Amazon Linux 2023. -y answers yes for you.

What to do: Install the httpd package on Amazon Linux 2023 without being asked to confirm.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

Easy Test a website from the server

Why: curl shows whether the web server answers, even before DNS is ready.

What to do: Request http://localhost and show only the response headers.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

Easy Download code from GitHub

Why: git clone copies the whole repository to the server, ready to deploy.

What to do: Clone https://github.com/pandharpuryatra/website.git into the current folder.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

Medium Test the nginx config

Why: A test catches typos before a restart takes your site down.

What to do: Check the nginx configuration files for errors.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

Medium Start a service now and at boot

Why: enable makes it start after reboot; --now also starts it right away.

What to do: Enable the nginx service and start it immediately, in one command.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

Medium Open port 80 to the world

Why: Visitors can reach your website only if the security group allows HTTP.

What to do: Allow inbound TCP port 80 from 0.0.0.0/0 on security group sg-02b64222c4b14c3b2.

How:
  1. Read the task and decide which AWS service it is about.
  2. Write aws, then the service name, then the operation (the action word).
  3. Add each needed flag (--name) followed by its value from the task.
  4. Flags can be in any order. Click Check answer.

Medium CloudFormation: web security group

Why: Opening only 443 keeps the server safer.

What to do: Template with an AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup that allows TCP 443 from 0.0.0.0/0. Add a GroupDescription.

How:
  1. Start from the top-level keys the task names.
  2. Indent child keys with 2 spaces (no tabs).
  3. Fill in each property with the value from the task.
  4. Click Check answer. Key order does not matter.

Medium Create a security group

Why: A security group is the firewall around your instance.

What to do: Create a security group named pandharpuryatra-web-sg with description "Web servers" in vpc-0c4222e4f1deadbee.

How:
  1. Read the task and decide which AWS service it is about.
  2. Write aws, then the service name, then the operation (the action word).
  3. Add each needed flag (--name) followed by its value from the task.
  4. Flags can be in any order. Click Check answer.

Hard Enable an nginx site on Ubuntu

Why: On Ubuntu, a site is enabled by a symbolic link from sites-available to sites-enabled.

What to do: Create a symbolic link to /etc/nginx/sites-available/pandharpuryatra inside /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/.

How:
  1. Find the Linux command that does this job.
  2. Add the options (like -r or -h) the task needs.
  3. Add the file names, folders or users in the right order.
  4. Use sudo if the job changes system files or users. Click Check answer.

See all practice tasks in the Task Hub →