Nginx cheatsheet

Service control

Command	Description
`systemctl status nginx`	Service status
`systemctl reload nginx`	Reload config (graceful)
`systemctl restart nginx`	Full restart
`nginx -t`	Test config syntax
`nginx -T`	Test and dump full effective config

Sites (Debian/Ubuntu)

Command	Description
`ln -s .../sites-available/mysite /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/`	Enable a site
`rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default`	Disable default site
`ls /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/`	List enabled sites

Logs and debugging

Command	Description
`tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log`	Follow error log
`tail -f /var/log/nginx/access.log`	Follow access log
`journalctl -u nginx -f`	systemd journal
`ss -tlnp \| grep nginx`	Check listeners
`curl -vI -H "Host: www.example.com" http://127.0.0.1/`	Test vhost locally

Static site server block

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name www.example.com;
    root /var/www/example;
    index index.html;

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

Reverse proxy server block

upstream app_backend {
    server 127.0.0.1:8000;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name api.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://app_backend;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Pro tips

Always run nginx -t before reload — syntax errors can prevent startup
Use curl -H "Host: ..." to test server blocks without DNS
Trailing slash on proxy_pass changes URI rewriting — check the docs
nginx -T shows the merged config after all include directives

Practice scenarios

Hands-on Nginx scenarios on live Linux VMs: nginx