Why Use /etc/nginx/sites-available and /etc/nginx/sites-enabled?

 

1. Organization: Keeping each site's configuration in separate files makes the server easier to manage, especially when hosting multiple sites. You can easily enable, disable, or modify configurations for individual sites without affecting the others.

2. Scalability: As you host more websites, you won't clutter the main nginx.conf file with site-specific configurations. This keeps your main configuration file clean and focused on global settings.

3. Ease of Enable/Disable: You can enable a site by creating a symbolic link in the sites-enabled directory to its configuration file in sites-available. Similarly, you can disable a site by removing the symbolic link. This setup allows for quick enabling and disabling of sites without actually removing their configuration files.

How Does It Work?

• /etc/nginx/sites-available: This directory stores the available server block configurations. Each site hosted on the server has its configuration file here, such as domain.com.conf. However, merely having a configuration file in sites-available does not activate the site.

• /etc/nginx/sites-enabled: This directory contains symbolic links to configuration files in the sites-available directory. Nginx reads all the configurations linked here when starting up. Only sites linked in this directory are served by Nginx.

Creating and Enabling a New Site

To add a new site, you would:

1. Create a new configuration file in /etc/nginx/sites-available/, such as your_domain.com.conf, and define the server block for your site.

2. Enable the site by creating a symbolic link in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled to the configuration file you just created in sites-available. You can do this with the ln -s command:

   bash
   sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/your_domain.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
   

3. Test the Nginx configuration for errors:

   bash
   sudo nginx -t
   

4. Reload Nginx to apply the changes:

   bash
   sudo systemctl reload nginx
   

5.