Nginx

I finally got fed up with Apache's endless permissions problems and incomprehensible labyrinth of config files and virtualhosts that never, ever work, ever, not even a single time.

I switched to nginx.

Also see Gunicorn page for running Python apps on top of nginx.

Installing

Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install nginx

Basic Info

By default, nginx serves files out of

/usr/share/nginx/html

The default config file is located in

/etc/nginx/sites-available/default

To start/stop nginx, use it as a service,

sudo service nginx start
sudo service nginx stop

It is generally a good idea to add virtual servers into the default configuration file, despite what I do below.

Virtual Hosts

Directory Structure and Permissions

I have created two http root directories, to serve two virtual hosts:

/www/example.com/public_html/
/www/test.com/public_html/

Both contain an index.html file with a simple hello world message.

Now I transfer ownership of these two directories to my regular username,

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /www/example.com/public_html
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /www/test.com/public_html
sudo chmod -R 755 /www/

Config File

Create a copy of the config file for each site:

sudo cp /etc/nginx/sites-available/default /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com
sudo cp /etc/nginx/sites-available/default /etc/nginx/sites-available/test.com

The contents:

example.com config file

/etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com
--------------------------

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    root /www/example.com/public_html;
    index index.html index.htm;

    server_name example.com www.example.com;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

test.com config file

/etc/nginx/sites-available/test.com
--------------------------
server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;

    root /www/test.com/public_html;
    index index.html index.htm;

    server_name test.com www.test.com;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

Enabling Site/Site Config

To enable the site whose config files we just created, we create symlinks in nginx's sites-enabled:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/test.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Changing Hash Bucket Size

Mentioned by [1]. Edit the nginx config file:

sudo vim /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

and uncomment this line:

server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;

Restarting nginx to Implement Changes

sudo service nginx restart

Works

Works like a dream!

Virtual Hosts Revisited

I wasn't able to successfully implement virtual hosts with nginx using the procedure above, so I gave it another shot using the procedure outlined below.

Domain Records

I have two domains, doxuments.com and doxcompany.com, through NameCheap. I log in to name cheap and change the domain records of each domain.

For each domain, I create an A Name record for @ and an A Name record for www. Both point to the IP address of the server running nginx.

This makes two IP addresses, with two A Name records each, all pointing to the same IP address.

A.B.C.D

Set Permissions

I have two sites, served by a single instance of nginx out of two directories, /www/doxuments.com and /www/doxcompany.com. The permissions on these folders are set following [2]:

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data doxcompany.com/ doxuments.com/

$ sudo chmod 755 doxcompany.com/ doxuments.com/

Now onto the nginx settings.

Nginx

I change the domain records so that I have two domains, doxuments.com and doxcompany.com, pointing to the same server - one single IP address.

$ cat doxcompany.com
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80 ipv6only=on;

    server_name doxcompany.com;

    root /www/doxcompany.com/htdocs;
    index index.html index.htm;

    server_name doxcompany.com www.doxcompany.com;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

$ cat doxuments.com
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    server_name doxuments.com;

    root /www/doxuments.com/htdocs;
    index index.html index.htm;

    server_name doxuments.com www.doxuments.com;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

doxcompany.com points to /www/doxcompany.com/htdocs and doxuments.com points to /www/doxuments.com/htdocs. Couldn't be simpler.

Enable site

I enable these sites by copying these sites-available files to the sites-enabled folder:

$ sudo ln -fs /etc/nginx/sites-available/doxuments.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/doxuments.com

$ sudo ln -fs /etc/nginx/sites-available/doxcompany.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/doxcompany.com

Restart Nginx

Now restart the nginx service.

$ sudo service nginx restart

Works!

And whaddya know, it works.

Using /www

If you want to use a particular directory structure, like /www/htdocs, you can do it this way:

Edit the file corresponding to the desired site name, something like /etc/nginx/sites-available/basic. Change the line:

    root /www/htdocs;

to reflect whatever directory structure you want. Then restart the service:

sudo service nginx restart

and you're off!