Common Mistakes I See Students Make

By Ravindra Bagale Last updated: 25 September 2026

Changing DocumentRoot but not the matching <Directory>, then getting 403.
Saving backups as site.conf.bak.conf or site-old.conf in conf.d, which loads the same site twice (conflicting server name warning).
Forgetting the symlink on Ubuntu Nginx, or linking with a relative path that points nowhere (ls -l sites-enabled shows broken links in red).
Writing server_name with http://, like server_name http://example.com;. Only the bare host name belongs there.
Pointing the web root at /home/ec2-user/site and changing home permissions to 777.
Opening a new port in the config but not in the security group.
Disabling SELinux instead of using semanage fcontext / semanage port.
Restarting without nginx -t and taking the site down with a typo.