{"id":1764,"date":"2019-09-24T23:56:30","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T15:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techcoil.com\/blog\/?p=1764"},"modified":"2020-05-12T13:32:23","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T05:32:23","slug":"understanding-the-default-nginx-virtual-host-or-server-configuration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techcoil.com\/blog\/understanding-the-default-nginx-virtual-host-or-server-configuration\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the default Nginx virtual host (or server) configuration"},"content":{"rendered":"

After you had installed Nginx<\/a>, one of the first thing to do is to check whether it is running ok. <\/p>\n

One way to do so is to use your browser to send a HTTP request<\/a> to test it.<\/p>\n

If you had installed Nginx on your local machine, then you may enter http:\/\/localhost<\/a> or http:\/\/127.0.0.1<\/a> into the location bar of your browser.<\/p>\n

When you had setup Nginx on a separate machine on your home network, you may also enter http:\/\/<ip_address_of_the_machine> in the location bar of your browser. For example, in how to host a WordPress website on a Raspberry Pi with Raspbian Buster Lite and Nginx<\/a>, I had entered http:\/\/192.168.1.114<\/a> as the location to test out the Nginx server running on my Raspberry Pi.<\/p>\n

So be it http:\/\/localhost<\/strong>, http:\/\/127.0.0.1<\/strong>, http:\/\/<ip_address_of_the_machine><\/strong>, you will always see this page on your browser screen:<\/p>\n

\"default<\/p>\n

In case you are wondering why your Nginx behaves this way, this post will explain what the default Nginx Virtual Host configuration does to Nginx.<\/p>\n

Where is your Nginx configuration file located at?<\/h2>\n

In order to know what the default Nginx Virtual Host configurations does, we need to find the file that contain them. Since Nginx process configurations from a file named as nginx.conf<\/code>, we can use the find<\/code> command to find it.<\/p>\n

Given that, run the following command in your terminal to find nginx.conf<\/code>:<\/p>\n

\r\nsudo find \/ -name nginx.conf\r\n<\/pre>\n
Typically, you can find the file in either \/usr\/local\/nginx\/conf<\/code>, \/etc\/nginx<\/code>, or \/usr\/local\/etc\/nginx<\/code>.<\/p>\n
Looking for the default configuration file that came with your Nginx installation<\/h2>\n
Once you know where nginx.conf<\/code> is, you can open up the configuration file to check its content. For example, on a Debian based operating system, I will run the following command to check the main configuration file:<\/p>\n
 \r\ncat \/etc\/nginx\/nginx.conf\r\n<\/pre>\n
When this command was ran on my Raspbian Buster Lite<\/a>, I got the following content:<\/p>\n
\r\nuser www-data;\r\nworker_processes auto;\r\npid \/run\/nginx.pid;\r\ninclude \/etc\/nginx\/modules-enabled\/*.conf;\r\n\r\nevents {\r\n\tworker_connections 768;\r\n\t# multi_accept on;\r\n}\r\n\r\nhttp {\r\n\r\n\t##\r\n\t# Basic Settings\r\n\t##\r\n\r\n\tsendfile on;\r\n\ttcp_nopush on;\r\n\ttcp_nodelay on;\r\n\tkeepalive_timeout 65;\r\n\ttypes_hash_max_size 2048;\r\n\t# server_tokens off;\r\n\r\n\t# server_names_hash_bucket_size 32;\r\n\t# server_name_in_redirect off;\r\n\r\n\tinclude \/etc\/nginx\/mime.types;\r\n\tdefault_type application\/octet-stream;\r\n\r\n\t##\r\n\t# SSL Settings\r\n\t##\r\n\r\n\tssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE\r\n\tssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;\r\n\r\n\t##\r\n\t# Logging Settings\r\n\t##\r\n\r\n\taccess_log \/var\/log\/nginx\/access.log;\r\n\terror_log \/var\/log\/nginx\/error.log;\r\n\r\n\t##\r\n\t# Gzip Settings\r\n\t##\r\n\r\n\tgzip on;\r\n\r\n\t# gzip_vary on;\r\n\t# gzip_proxied any;\r\n\t# gzip_comp_level 6;\r\n\t# gzip_buffers 16 8k;\r\n\t# gzip_http_version 1.1;\r\n\t# gzip_types text\/plain text\/css application\/json application\/javascript text\/xml application\/xml application\/xml+rss text\/javascript;\r\n\r\n\t##\r\n\t# Virtual Host Configs\r\n\t##\r\n\r\n\tinclude \/etc\/nginx\/conf.d\/*.conf;\r\n\tinclude \/etc\/nginx\/sites-enabled\/*;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n#mail {\r\n#\t# See sample authentication script at:\r\n#\t# http:\/\/wiki.nginx.org\/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript\r\n# \r\n#\t# auth_http localhost\/auth.php;\r\n#\t# pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";\r\n#\t# imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";\r\n# \r\n#\tserver {\r\n#\t\tlisten     localhost:110;\r\n#\t\tprotocol   pop3;\r\n#\t\tproxy      on;\r\n#\t}\r\n# \r\n#\tserver {\r\n#\t\tlisten     localhost:143;\r\n#\t\tprotocol   imap;\r\n#\t\tproxy      on;\r\n#\t}\r\n#}\r\n<\/pre>\n
Since we are investigating the default Nginx Virtual Host configurations, check the section commented with Virtual Host Configs<\/strong> to see what is going on. In case you are wondering, comments in Nginx configurations start with a #<\/strong> character. <\/p>\n
Given that, we can see that the main configuration file will include:<\/p>\n