Essential Nginx Configuration Cheat Sheet: Ports, Logs, Domains, and More

Overview

Nginx is a high‑performance HTTP and reverse‑proxy web server that also supports IMAP/POP3/SMTP. It is popular for its rich feature set, stability, example configurations, and low resource consumption. The following sections present frequently used configuration snippets.

Listening Ports

Configure standard HTTP, HTTPS, HTTP/2, and IPv6 listeners:

server {

# Standard HTTP

listen 80;

# Standard HTTPS

listen 443 ssl;

# HTTP/2

listen 443 ssl http2;

# IPv6 on port 80

listen [::]:80;

# IPv6 only

listen [::]:80 ipv6only=on;

}

Access Log

Enable or disable logging and set the log file path:

server {

# Path to log file

access_log /path/to/file.log;

# Turn logging on or off

access_log on;

}

Server Names (Domain Configuration)

Define which hostnames the server should respond to:

server {

# Single domain

server_name yourdomain.com;

# Multiple domains

server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;

# Wildcard subdomains

server_name *.yourdomain.com;

# All top‑level domains

server_name yourdomain.*;

# Empty host (listen on IP address)

server_name "";

}

Static Resources

Serve static files from a directory:

server {

listen 80;

server_name yourdomain.com;

location / {

root /path/to/website;

}

}

Redirects

Permanent redirects from one domain to another or from a specific URL to another location:

server {

listen 80;

server_name www.yourdomain.com;

return 301 http://yourdomain.com$request_uri;

}

server {

listen 80;

server_name www.yourdomain.com;

location /redirect-url {

return 301 http://otherdomain.com;

}

}

Reverse Proxy

Proxy requests to an upstream application server (e.g., a Node.js app on port 3000):

server {

listen 80;

server_name yourdomain.com;

location / {

proxy_pass http://0.0.0.0:3000;

# 0.0.0.0:3000 is the application server

}

}

Load Balancing

Define an upstream group with multiple backend servers and proxy to it:

upstream node_js {

server 0.0.0.0:3000;

server 0.0.0.0:4000;

server 123.131.121.122;

}

server {

listen 80;

server_name yourdomain.com;

location / {

proxy_pass http://node_js;

}

}

SSL Configuration

Enable SSL, specify certificates, and enforce security headers:

server {

listen 443 ssl;

server_name yourdomain.com;

ssl on;

ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.pem;

ssl_certificate_key /path/to/privatekey.pem;

ssl_stapling on;

ssl_stapling_verify on;

ssl_trusted_certificate /path/to/fullchain.pem;

ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;

ssl_session_timeout 1h;

ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;

add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=15768000;

}

Additionally, redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS:

server {

listen 80;

server_name yourdomain.com;

return 301 https://$host$request_uri;

}

Reference: https://vishnu.hashnode.dev/nginx-cheatsheet