Content Server Setup - Part 3

3. Nginx Server Setup

Now that i) we have configured a generic Linux server on your machine ii)created a user that can access to this server, we will now move on to the next step.

In this guide, we’ll cover how to install Nginx (a webserver) on your Ubuntu 18.04 server.

What is Nginx?

Nginx is one of the most popular web servers currently being used and hosts some of the highest-traffic sites on the internet. It is really resource-friendly and can be used as a web server or reverse proxy. To know more about Nginx please click here

Open terminal in Ubuntu

TYPE the following commands

$ sudo su 
$ [sudo] password for 'username': 
# once you've entered your password you will have root permissions

Installing Nginx

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install nginx
#After accepting the procedure, apt will install Nginx and any required dependencies to your server.

Adjusting the Firewall

$ sudo ufw app list
#You should get a listing of the application profiles:

output:
Available applications:
  Nginx Full
  Nginx HTTP
  Nginx HTTPS
  OpenSSH
# Nginx HTTP: This profile opens only port 80 (normal, unencrypted web traffic). You need to enable this
 
$ sudo ufw allow 'Nginx HTTP'
#You can verify by typing 
$ sudo ufw status

output:
Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
OpenSSH                    ALLOW       Anywhere                  
Nginx HTTP                 ALLOW       Anywhere                  
OpenSSH (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
Nginx HTTP (v6)            ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

#You should see HTTP traffic allowed in the displayed output

Checking for webserver

$ systemctl status nginx

output: 
nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2020-02-12 11:14:27 CET; 30 min ago
     Docs: man:nginx(8)
 Main PID: 2369 (nginx)
    Tasks: 2 (limit: 1153)
   CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
           ├─2369 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;
           └─2380 nginx: worker process
        
#The service appears to have started successfull. You can access the default page Nginx landing page to confirm that the software is running properly by navigating to your server’s IP address.

Enter your server IP address
```
$ ifconfig

#This will give your IP 
```
When you have your server’s IP address, enter it into your browser’s address bar:
```
http://your_server_ip or localhost 
```

This should display the default Nginx landing page

Now you will have to set up the server blocks

Creating web directory for each host

$ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/example.com/public_html

#The above directory is owned by root user. We need to change the ownership to the regular user
$ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/html/example.com/public_html
$ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/
#Here the $USER refers to you, the currently logged in user

Creating demo page for each Host

$ sudo nano /var/www/html/example.com/public_html/index.html

Add the following lines

<html>
 <head>
 <title>www.example.com</title>
 </head>
 <body>
 <h1>Hello! this page is to test for the static website</h1>
 </body>
</html>

Create configuration file for each host

$ sudo cp /etc/nginx/sites-available/default /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com.conf
$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com.conf

output:
# Default server configuration
#
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;

# SSL configuration
#
# listen 443 ssl default_server;
# listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
#
# Note: You should disable gzip for SSL traffic.
# See: https://bugs.debian.org/773332
#
# Read up on ssl_ciphers to ensure a secure configuration.
# See: https://bugs.debian.org/765782
#
# Self signed certs generated by the ssl-cert package
# Don't use them in a production server!
#
# include snippets/snakeoil.conf;

root /var/www/html/example.com/public_html;

# Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

server_name example.com www.example.com;

location / {
# First attempt to serve request as file, then
# as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}

#Edit line 27 and 32 accordingly in your terminal

Enable Nginx Server block

$ sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
$ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
$ sudo systemctl restart nginx

Test Nginx Server block

$ sudo nano /etc/hosts

#Add all your virtual domain like below.
output: 
[...]
192.168.225.24   example.com
[...]

#we do this beacuse this is your domain and we'll need to point it to the localhost server

The script that will do all of this manual work for you → script.sh (still to come) please configure manually for now, we are working on automating this process by writing a simple script. It should be available soonn

to execute this

Name it something like: script.sh.
Make it executable: sudo chmod 755 script.sh
Run it: sudo ./script.sh example.com

Once you have all of this setup, you will have to send the following information to Rumie.

Provide Rumie:

Public IP Address of the Server
Username - Part 2
User Password - Part 2
Web Directory Root
Content Sync Schedule (UTC Time + Day(s) of the Week/Month)
Project ID it should be connected to

Rumie will use this information to access your server and sync Content