Activate an Nginx Web Server on a Pi (or any Linux)

1. SSH into your host:

ssh pi@raspberrypi

2. Install Nginx

sudo apt update -y
sudo apt install nginx -y

-y is a flag to accept the additional data sizes that come from the installation.

Optional Are you using an ufw firewall? Enable nginx with: sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'

3. Open Browser with Host IP / Hostname

In step 1, I used pi@raspberrypi which means my hostname is raspberrypi.

Let’s get the IP (reference):

Option 1

HOST_IP1=$(ip -4 addr show eth0 | grep -oP '(?<=inet\s)\d+(\.\d+){3}')
echo $HOST_IP1

Option 2

HOST_IP=$(hostname  -I | cut -f1 -d' ')
echo $HOST_IP

Now that we have nginx installend & our host ip, let’s open our browser:

http://raspberrypi

or

http://192.168.86.24

Do you have the wrong IP Address? Does the page never load? List list other devices on your newtork with namp on mac, linux, or windows. Listing the devices might help you find the correct IP address.

4. Review nginx default configuration

cat /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

The actual source is linked from /etc/nginx/sites-available

5. Review the default nginx html page:

cat /var/www/html/*.html

The actual source is /var/www/html/index.nginx-debian.html

6. Did you change anything in nginx?

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Using reload will not stop nginx. Using stop and then start will. So will restart.

7. Next steps

Now you’re ready to learn more about nginx and using it for:

• Load Balancing
• Reverse Proxy
• API Gateway

And more.