Setting Up Nginx on Ubuntu AWS EC2: A Step-by-Step Guide

As a DevOps engineer, setting up web servers is a common task. In this guide, I'll walk you through the process of installing and configuring Nginx on an Ubuntu EC2 instance. I'll be using Termius as my terminal client for SSH connections, which provides a clean and user-friendly interface for managing server connections.

Prerequisites

• An AWS account with an EC2 instance running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• SSH access to your instance

• Basic knowledge of Linux commands

• Termius installed on your machine (iTerm2 (Mac Os), Putty (Win Os) )

Step 1: Connecting to Your EC2 Instance

I'm using Termius to manage my SSH connections. After launching my EC2 instance (t2.nano in this case),

I added it to Termius using the public IP address (54.239.173.240 in my case) and my SSH credentials. Termius makes it easy to organize and manage multiple server connections with its intuitive interface.

Step 2: Verifying Ubuntu Version

First, let's check our Ubuntu version to ensure we're working with the correct system:

cat /etc/os-release

As shown in the output, we're running Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish), which is perfect for our setup.

Step 3: Installing Nginx

Now, let's update our package lists and install Nginx:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install nginx -y

This command updates the package repository and installs Nginx in one go. The -y flag automatically answers "yes" to the installation prompt.

Step 4: Verifying the Installation

After installation, we can verify Nginx's version and status:

nginx -v

This shows we've installed Nginx version 1.18.0.

To check if Nginx is running properly:

sudo systemctl status nginx

The output shows that Nginx is active and running, with the following details:

• Service is loaded and enabled

• Active status: running

• Process ID and worker processes are properly initialized

• Memory usage and CPU time are being tracked

And there you have it! We've successfully installed Nginx on our Ubuntu EC2 instance. The server is now ready to serve web content. In future posts, we'll explore how to configure Nginx for hosting websites and setting up reverse proxies.

This is just my cue for an exiting 8 week Devops Internship at HNG

Step 5: Customizing the Default Page

After confirming Nginx was running properly, customize the default welcome page. To do this, modify the default HTML file:

sudo nano /var/www/html/index.html

I replaced the contents with a custom welcome message:

<h1>Welcome to DevOps Stage 0 – JaneDoe/@janedevops</h1>

Step 6: Configuring Firewall

To ensure our web server is accessible, we need to configure the firewall to allow HTTP traffic:

sudo ufw allow 80

After this, you can access your web server by entering your EC2 instance's public IP address in a web browser. Make sure your EC2 security group also allows inbound traffic on port 80 (HTTP).

Remember to always follow AWS security best practices and keep your system updated for optimal performance and security.