Setting Up Nginx on Ubuntu for DevOps Stage 0

Introduction

In this blog, I document my experience completing HNG’s DevOps Stage 0 task, where I set up and configured NGINX on a free Ubuntu server. This process involved installing Nginx, serving a static HTML page, and making the page accessible via a public IP.

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Approach

To accomplish this, I followed these steps:

1. Provisioned a free cloud VM using Oracle Cloud Free Tier.

2. Installed Nginx on the Ubuntu server.

3. Created a custom HTML page inside /var/www/html/index.html.

4. Allowed HTTP traffic (port 80) using UFW.

5. Restarted Nginx and tested the setup by accessing my public IP in a browser.

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Challenges and Solutions

Challenge 1: Finding a free cloud provider

🔹 Solution: I chose Oracle Cloud Free Tier since it provides an always-free VM with a public IP.

Challenge 2: Nginx not serving the custom page

🔹 Solution: I restarted Nginx using:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

I also cleared my browser cache to ensure I was viewing the latest changes.

Challenge 3: Firewall blocking requests

🔹 Solution: I allowed HTTP traffic using:

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'

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How This Task Contributes to My Learning

This task strengthened my Linux system administration skills and introduced me to basic Nginx configurations. It also reinforced the importance of firewall rules and server security in DevOps.

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References

1. Cloud Engineers – Understanding cloud infrastructure and deployment strategies.

2. Linux Developers – Linux command-line skills and server setup.

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