A website on a VPS: Nginx and a free SSL certificate

On a VPS you can run a website with your own domain and a free HTTPS certificate from Let's Encrypt. Below is an example for Debian and Ubuntu.

1. Point the domain to the VPS

At your domain registrar add an A record with your VPS IP address for yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com. The change usually works within minutes, sometimes after a few hours.

2. Install Nginx

apt update && apt install -y nginx

If you restrict traffic in the Firewall tab, open ports 80 and 443. At http://IP_ADDRESS you will see the Nginx welcome page.

3. Add your site

Create a folder for the site's files and a configuration file:

mkdir -p /var/www/yourdomain.com
nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com

Paste into the file:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/yourdomain.com;
    index index.html;
}

Enable the site and reload Nginx:

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

Upload the site's files (e.g. index.html) to /var/www/yourdomain.com, e.g. over SFTP.

4. Turn on HTTPS

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

Certbot gets the certificate, sets up the redirect to HTTPS and renews it by itself.

PHP sites and WordPress

For PHP sites install PHP-FPM and the MariaDB database (apt install -y php-fpm php-mysql mariadb-server). Running the application in Docker can also be easier: see Docker on a VPS.

Remember updates and securing the server: How to secure your VPS.