Virtual Hosts

A single Nginx server can host many websites at once. Each site gets its own server block, a setup commonly called virtual hosting.

Multiple Server Blocks

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name site-one.com;
    root /var/www/site-one;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name site-two.com;
    root /var/www/site-two;
}

Both listen on port 80. Nginx routes each request to the matching block based on the Host header.

The sites-available Pattern

On Debian and Ubuntu, configs are organized into two folders:

• /etc/nginx/sites-available/ holds one file per site.
• /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ holds symlinks to the active sites.

The main nginx.conf includes the enabled folder:

include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;

Enabling a Site

Create the config in sites-available, then link it:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/site-one /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Disabling a Site

Remove the symlink, not the original file, then reload:

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/site-one
sudo systemctl reload nginx

This pattern keeps every site’s config available while letting you turn sites on and off without deleting anything.