nginx

Last Updated: Tue Oct 13 2026

My web server of choice.

Installation

# apt install nginx

Block undefined domain

# /etc/nginx/conf.d/undefined.conf

server {
    listen 443 ssl default_server;
    ssl_reject_handshake on;
    return 444;
}

Serving website

The following uses this website configuration as example.

# /etc/nginx/conf.d/personal-website.conf

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name islabre.fyi;
    root /var/www/html/Personal-Website;

    limit_req zone=perip burst=5;
    limit_req zone=perserver burst=10;

    expires 1d;
    add_header Cache-Control must-revalidate;

    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/islabre.fyi/cert.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/certs/islabre.fyi/key.pem;

    location / {

    }
}

Note:

The empty location / {} block is needed to stop path traversal attack
It's benefical to cache pages to speed up UX (1 day cache seems to be enough)

Rate-limiting

Essential for slowing down bots.

# /etc/nginx/conf.d/rate-limiting.conf

limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=perip:10m rate=5r/s;
limit_req_zone $server_name zone=perserver:10m rate=15r/s;