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nginx

A Diagram

:8081
nginx server
/usr/share/nginx/html
static files (index.html, etc.)
outside world

A WebServer For Web Developers

Coming from a "full-stack"-first developer set of experiences, nginx nginx might feel most similar to a web-server - something like an express server with node. nginx, though, is used for different use-cases - a reverse proxy, caching assets, load balancing... things that can compliment what node apps might be more traditionally built to do.

Spin Up The Out-Of-The-Box Docker Image

docker run --name ngx -p 8081:80 --hostname ng1 -d nginx

A brief rundown -

  • use docker
  • name the container ngx
  • make the running container available on port 8081 on the host
  • give it a hostname of ng1
  • run it in the background

with that running, a browser at localhost:8081 should show something like

Welcome to nginx!

If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed...

Leverage the default html dir to serve custom assets

NGINX serves that html file above, that prints the above content, from a directory inside the container at /usr/share/nginx/html

make an html dir and file to serve

# create a directory to hold the file
mkdir html

cd html
touch index.html

vi index.html

fill the file with something simple for a p.o.c here:

<html>
  <head>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2> This is my own html page!</h2>
  </body>
</html>

Run the container and mount the html dir

docker run --name nx --hostname ng1 -p 8081:80 -v $PWD/html:/usr/share/nginx/html -d nginx

Using a browser to view localhost:8081 will show the This is my own html page!

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