Nginx configuration files - conventions

Nginx is controlled by a set of plain-text configuration files. Instructions on the web about these files are confusing because the conventions about them have changed over time. According to a 2017 video from Nginx, these are the main files and directories:

  • /etc/nginx/ - top-level directory for all configuration files
  • /etc/nginx/nginx.conf - server-level configuration file that “should not need much modification”
    • What does “not much” modification mean? Surely this could be made clearer.
    • The Nginx beginner’s guide misleadingly tells you to modify this file.
  • /etc/nginx/conf.d/ - directory that holds site-specific .conf files, such as mysite.conf
    • files in this directory are pulled into the server configuration by this line inside nginx.conf:
      • include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
  • /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf - the operative site-specific configuration file when you first install Nginx

Unfortunately, you will see lots of underexplained references to two other configuration directories:

  • /etc/nginx/sites-available, and
  • /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

Apparently in the distant past, these were your configuration directories. And a Digital Ocean tutorial from 2018, validated in 2021, still tells you to use them (without saying why). But here’s what O’Reilly’s NGINX Cookbook (available as registration-ware from NGINX.com) says:

In some package repositories, this folder [i.e., /etc/nginx/conf.d] is named sites-enabled, and configuration files are linked from a folder named sites-available; this convention is deprecated.

So my task will be to understand, and explain, how Nginx configuration files work, following modern conventions. Stay tuned.

Motivation for this series on Nginx

Someday, I’m going to build a Django site. There are lots of tutorials and instructions about how to develop one locally, but less information about deploying one (the official Django docs on deployment are underwhelming).

From what I’ve found, it seems like deploying Django alongside Nginx is a standard practice. And there are some detailed tutorials on deploying them together, like this one from RealPython. But even the good tutorials tend to be lists of instructions, and some of the instructions about configuring Nginx are underexplained and even outdated. So I set out to get a deeper understanding of Nginx configuration and best practices.

“Nginx” or “nginx” or “NGINX”?

The Nginx open-source docs use “nginx.” The commercial Nginx distro uses “NGINX.” I use “Nginx” because it’s the easiest to read and write.