I noticed pagination was broken in production, but not locally when the site is built. So after fixing it (it’s the try_files line), I decided to note down the setup used.

Ideally, Cloudfare Pages would be better for a static site, but if you’d like to serve it in a linux box, then follow these steps.

  • The site’s main nginx config file /etc/nginx/conf.d/npras.in.conf:
server {
  server_name npras.in;

# Remove trailing slash (redirect to non-trailing slash version)
  rewrite ^/(.*)/$ /$1 permanent;

  add_header X-Clacks-Overhead "GNU Terry Pratchett";

  location / {
    root /var/www/npras.in;
    index index.html index.htm;
    try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html =404;
  }

  listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/npras.in/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/npras.in/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
  include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
  ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot

}

server {
  if ($host = npras.in) {
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
  } # managed by Certbot

  listen 80;
  server_name npras.in;
  return 404; # managed by Certbot
}
  • This file is then referenced in nginx’s main config file: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf. It’s included in the http block. Only that’s relevant here:
http {
  include mime.types;
  default_type  application/octet-stream;
  sendfile on;
  gzip on;
  types_hash_max_size 4096;
  access_log logs/access.log;

  # load server configs
  include /etc/nginx/conf.d/npras.in.conf;
}

  • Ensure right access to the site’s directory var/www/npras.in should be chmodded to your user and group. Only then you’ll be able to push the files to the server via rsync.

  • Know a few handy commands. Like nginx -t to check if config changes are valid. nginx -s reload to have the changes take effect.

Updated: