Installing and Securing Nginx

Installing and Securing Nginx

Nginx installation focuses on performance and security from the start:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install nginx
sudo systemctl stop nginx

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install nginx
sudo systemctl stop nginx

Configure Nginx security in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:

user www-data;  # Or nginx user on CentOS
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;

events {
    worker_connections 1024;
    use epoll;
    multi_accept on;
}

http {
    # Basic Settings
    sendfile on;
    tcp_nopush on;
    tcp_nodelay on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;
    server_tokens off;  # Hide Nginx version
    
    # Security Headers
    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN" always;
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff" always;
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block" always;
    add_header Referrer-Policy "no-referrer-when-downgrade" always;
    
    # SSL Settings (prepare for later)
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers off;
    
    # Logging Settings
    access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
    
    # Gzip Settings
    gzip on;
    gzip_vary on;
    gzip_proxied any;
    gzip_comp_level 6;
    gzip_types text/plain text/css text/xml text/javascript application/json application/javascript application/xml+rss application/rss+xml application/atom+xml;
    gzip_disable "msie6";
    
    # Security Limits
    client_body_buffer_size 1K;
    client_header_buffer_size 1k;
    client_max_body_size 1M;
    large_client_header_buffers 2 1k;
    
    # Include additional configurations
    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}