Server block structure in Nginx - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Server block structure

📖 Scenario: You are setting up a simple website on an Nginx web server. To do this, you need to create a server block configuration that tells Nginx how to handle requests for your website.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic Nginx server block configuration for a website hosted on example.com that listens on port 80 and serves files from /var/www/example.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a server block listening on port 80

Set the server name to example.com

Set the root directory to /var/www/example

Add an index directive with index.html as the default file

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Nginx server blocks are used to host websites and web applications by defining how the server responds to different domain names and requests.

💼 Career

Understanding server block structure is essential for DevOps engineers and system administrators managing web servers and deploying applications.

1

Create the server block skeleton

Write the opening and closing server { } block in your Nginx configuration file.

Nginx

# Write the opening and closing server block
server {
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Start by typing server { on one line and } on another line to create the block.

2

Add listen and server_name directives

Inside the server { } block, add a listen 80; directive and a server_name example.com; directive.

Nginx

server {
    # Add listen directive
    # Add server_name directive
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use listen 80; to tell Nginx to listen on port 80 and server_name example.com; to specify the website domain.

3

Add root and index directives

Inside the server { } block, add a root /var/www/example; directive and an index index.html; directive.

Nginx

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    # Add root directive
    # Add index directive
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

The root directive sets the folder where your website files are stored. The index directive sets the default file to serve.

4

Display the complete server block

Print the complete server block configuration exactly as you wrote it.

Nginx

# Print the server block configuration
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use multiple print statements to show each line of the server block exactly.