Ubuntu - the configuration steps to add a new website in Nginx

Published on: Jan 12, 2023
Updated on: Aug 21, 2025

Here's the step

Without the help on using cPanel or any other server management tool, you will need the following steps in adding a new website.

To add user, run the following command and it will create user record and an user directory in /home,
```
sudo useradd user1
```
To set password for the user, run the following command and then key in the password,
```
sudo passwd user1
```
To add user to a group,
```
sudo usermod -G www-data -a user1
```
To change user's home directory,
```
sudo usermod -d /home/user1 -m user1
```
If the web directory is accessible by the FTP user, you may have to set the access permission.
```
sudo mkdir /home/user1/domain2-com
sudo chown -R user1:www-data /home/user1
sudo chmod -R 0755 /home/user1
sudo chmod g+s /home/user1
```
Notes: where 'user1' is the user ID and 'www-data' is the group. Notes: where 'chmod g+s' set the current ACL to be inherited to the new files.
You may also set the quota for the user. In the following example, I'll allocate 1GB storage space to user1 account.
```
sudo setquota -u user1 1G 1.2G 0 0 /
```
NOTES: the first 1G is the soft limit and then the 1.2G is the hard limit. The last two zero is to limit by the number of files.
To disable the shell access for the user, you have to change the shell setting for the user account:
```
sudo usermod -s /usr/sbin/nologin user1
```
To enable the user accessing the FTP, add 'user1' into the following file
```
sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.userlist
```

To create 'domain2.com' file in /etc/nginx/sites-available.

server {
    server_name domain2.com www.domain2.com;

    root /home/user1/domain2-com;
    index index.htm index.html;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/domain2.log;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

To enable the new website:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/domain2.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Test the configuration and restart Nginx.

sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

To enable SSL cert for this new website, run the certbot command to add it:
```
certbot --nginx -d domain2.com,www.domain2.com
```

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