Nginx Configuration Is Not Programming. It Is Incantation.

Nginx config syntax looks like it should be intuitive. It is not. Directives nest in blocks. Order matters in ways the documentation does not emphasize. A misplaced semicolon does not produce an error. It produces unexpected behavior. The basic server block server { listen 80 ; server_name example.com www.example.com ; root /var/www/example ; index index.html ; location / { try_files $uri $uri / = 404 ; } } This is the minimum viable Nginx configuration for a static site. Every line matters. listen 80 tells Nginx to accept HTTP connections on port 80. server_name determines which requests this block handles based on the Host header. root sets the filesystem path for serving files. try_files attempts to serve the URI as a file, then as a directory, then returns 404. HTTPS configuration server { listen 443 ssl http2 ; server_name example.com ; ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem ; ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem ; ssl_protocol