--- title: "Docker Part Two: How to provision a VPS, install Nginx, and configure SSL." description: "How to provision and set up a vps!" slug: "provision-vps" published: "2019-06-18" tags: ["provision", "vps"] --- ## Docker Part Two: How to provision a VPS, install Nginx, and configure SSL We're going to provision a fresh server, install Nginx, and auto-configure SSL. I'll assume you have a domain name for this and a choice of VPS provider. There's loads of choices out there like AWS, DigitalOcean, etc, but for this tutorial I will be using Scaleway. ### Step 1 - Log onto Scaleway & SSH into your machine ### Step 2 - Upgrade system ```bash apt update && apt upgrade -y ``` ### Step 3 - Install Nginx ```bash apt install nginx -y ``` ### Step 4 - Create a test html file to serve If you want to host multiple domains on one server, ensure you create subdirectories. Replace example.com with your domain ```bash mkdir -p /var/www/example.com/html ``` Let's now edit said file ```bash nano /var/www/example.com/html/index.html ``` Add in some basic HTML to start ```html Welcome to example.com

Hello World!

You have accessed the example.com website.

``` ### Step 6 - Create a server to distribute files ```bash nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com ``` Within this, add in the following ```nginx server { listen 80; listen [::]:80; root /var/www/example.com/html; index index.html index.htm; server_name example.com www.example.com; location / { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; } } ``` Important: Edit the lines root and server_name according to your domain name. ### Step 7 - Symbolic link sites-available to sites-enabled ``` ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ ``` ### Step 8 - Verify and reboot server ``` nginx -t systemctl restart nginx ``` You should now see your server over http ### Step 9 - Install SSL using Certbot Get the latest package repo ``` add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot ``` Install certbot for nginx ``` apt install python-certbot-nginx -y ``` Launch the wizard ``` certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com ``` Done!

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