Install and Configure Nginx on Ubuntu 22.04

Nginx is a high-performance web server and reverse proxy. This guide installs Nginx, configures a virtual host for a domain, and secures it with a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 22.04 server with a public IP
• A domain name pointing to your server's IP (A record)
• Ports 80 and 443 open in your firewall

Step 1 — Install Nginx

$apt update
$apt install -y nginx

$systemctl status nginx

● 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 Thu 2026-04-24 10:00:00 UTC; 5s ago

Step 2 — Configure UFW for Nginx

$ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
$ufw status

Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
OpenSSH                    ALLOW IN    Anywhere
Nginx Full                 ALLOW IN    Anywhere

Step 3 — Create a Virtual Host

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

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

    server_name example.com www.example.com;
    root /var/www/example.com/html;
    index index.html index.htm;

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

    access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.access.log;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx/example.com.error.log;
}

Create the web root and a test page:

$mkdir -p /var/www/example.com/html
$echo "<h1>Welcome to example.com</h1>" > /var/www/example.com/html/index.html
$chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/example.com

Enable the site and test the configuration:

$ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
$nginx -t

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

$systemctl reload nginx

Step 4 — Install Certbot and Obtain SSL Certificate

$apt install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx
$certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

Follow the interactive prompts. Certbot will automatically update your Nginx configuration to redirect HTTP to HTTPS.

Step 5 — Verify Auto-Renewal

$certbot renew --dry-run

Congratulations, all renewals succeeded:
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem (success)

Step 6 — Configure Nginx as a Reverse Proxy (Optional)

To proxy requests to a backend application running on port 3000:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name app.example.com;

    ssl_certificate     /etc/letsencrypt/live/app.example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/app.example.com/privkey.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header   Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }
}

[!TIP] Always run nginx -t before reloading Nginx to catch configuration syntax errors.