🚀 Host a Website on AWS EC2 with NGINX – Complete Beginner Guide

If you're exploring AWS, Linux, or DevOps, learning to host a website using NGINX on an EC2 instance is a great starting point. In this post, I’ll walk you through all the key steps to get your first website live!

🔧 Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have:

• An AWS account

• Basic Linux terminal knowledge

• An EC2 instance (Amazon Linux 2 or Ubuntu)

• Security group with port 80 (HTTP) open
  Optionally: open custom ports like 90 or 8080

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📌 Step-by-Step Guide

1️⃣ Launch EC2 Instance

• Choose Amazon Linux 2 or Ubuntu

• Configure Security Group:

  • Allow port 80 (for HTTP)

  • Optionally allow port 90, 8080, etc.

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2️⃣ Install NGINX

For Amazon Linux:

bashCopyEditsudo yum install nginx -y

For Ubuntu:

bashCopyEditsudo apt install nginx -y

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3️⃣ Start the NGINX Service

bashCopyEditsudo service nginx start

Once NGINX is started, your EC2 instance can serve web pages!

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🌐 Access the Website

• Open your browser and visit:

    cppCopyEdithttp://<Your-EC2-Public-IP>
  

• If you're using a custom port (e.g., 90), access like this:

    cppCopyEdithttp://<Your-EC2-Public-IP>:90
  

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🛠 How NGINX Handles the Request

When a user sends a request:

1. It reaches the NGINX server

2. NGINX checks the server block in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

    nginxCopyEditlisten 80;
    root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    index index.html;
   

3. If no specific file is mentioned in the URL:

   • NGINX looks for index.html in the root folder

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⚠ Common Errors

• 403 Forbidden – index.html is missing in the root directory

• 404 Not Found – The requested file does not exist in the specified path

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🔄 Changing the Default Port (e.g., to 90)

Step 1: Open NGINX Config File

bashCopyEditsudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Step 2: Change the port inside the server block:

nginxCopyEditlisten 90;

Step 3: Update Security Group on EC2 to allow port 90

Step 4: Reload NGINX

bashCopyEditsudo service nginx reload

Step 5: Access the new port

cppCopyEdithttp://<Your-EC2-IP>:90

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✅ Quick Summary Table

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💬 Final Thoughts

Deploying a simple website using NGINX on EC2 gives you a hands-on intro to:

• How web servers work

• Managing cloud infrastructure

• Real-world DevOps basics