Create Nginix Server in VM¶

Steps¶

Step 1: Create a virtual machine¶

• Create a virtual machine instance on any cloud service like aws, azure or google cloud.
• Opt for ubuntu OS if possible.
• Get the ip for it.

Step 2: Configure server¶

• ssh into the server or open browser shell
• write following commands to update apt and install nginx

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y nginx

• open the default nginix configuration

nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

• write the following in the default configuration, create the upstream and set it in location

upstream myapp{
    server 127.0.0.1:8000; // your express or flask server route
}

server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen [::]:80 default_server;

    root /var/www/html;

    index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

    server_name _;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://myapp; //proxy forwarding here 
    }

}

• restart nginix

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 3: Get SSL certificate through certbot¶

• install certbot

sudo apt install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx

• Put an A DNS record in your dns management and give a domain to the ip of the server to get the ssl certificate.
• get the ssl certificate through following command, it will ask you to accept some conditions and enter your email.

sudo certbot --nginx -d your_domain_or_ip

• verify ssl certificate

sudo nginx -t

• reload nginx

sudo systemctl reload nginx

• Set Up Automatic Certificate Renewal, Certbot’s certificates are valid for 90 days, but it installs a cron job for automatic renewal. To manually test renewal, you can run:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run