How to Install and Configure Nginx on Linux VPS (Ubuntu)

Installing Nginx on Ubuntu VPS

SSH into your Netherlands Linux VPS and run:

apt update
apt install nginx -y
systemctl enable nginx
systemctl start nginx

Verify Nginx is running: systemctl status nginx. Open your VPS IP in a browser — you should see the Nginx welcome page.

Configure UFW Firewall

# Allow HTTP and HTTPS
ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw enable
ufw status

Create a Server Block (Virtual Host)

Server blocks in Nginx are equivalent to Apache's virtual hosts — they let you serve multiple domains from one VPS. Create a config file for your domain:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com

Paste this configuration:

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/yourdomain.com;
    index index.html index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
    }
}

Enable the site and test:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t
systemctl reload nginx

Enable HTTPS with Let's Encrypt

apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com

Certbot automatically modifies your Nginx config to redirect HTTP to HTTPS and installs the free SSL certificate. Certificates auto-renew every 90 days via a systemd timer.

Configure PHP-FPM with Nginx

apt install php8.1-fpm php8.1-mysql php8.1-curl php8.1-gd php8.1-mbstring -y
systemctl enable php8.1-fpm
systemctl start php8.1-fpm

Nginx + PHP-FPM is the recommended stack for WordPress on VPS — faster and more memory-efficient than Apache + mod_php.

Performance Optimisation

# Enable Gzip compression in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
gzip on;
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript;
gzip_min_length 1024;

# Enable browser caching
location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|ico|css|js)$ {
    expires 30d;
    add_header Cache-Control "public, no-transform";
}

Frequently Asked Questions