Configure NGINX on a Cloud Server: Digital Ocean & AWS

Deploy a Digital Ocean Ubuntu 18.04 droplet by creating a project, selecting the smallest one gigabyte package, and checking email for the server password.

Attach a floating IP to your server for future flexibility. Use the networking tab, select the floating IP option, and click assign to complete the Nginx setup.

Connect to your Digital Ocean droplet via terminal or PuTTY, using the web console if needed, SSH into root with the floating IP, and change the password after login.

Update the server's package index, install nginx with apt, confirm disk space, and verify the installation by accessing the floating IP to see the Welcome to Nginx page.

Install and secure MySQL on an Nginx server, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and switch from auth_socket to the MySQL native password for WordPress readiness.

Install php and php-mysql and configure nginx to use php-fpm by updating the default server block for index.php and php 7.2, then test with nginx -t and reload.

Create a PHP test file named info.php in the html directory to display PHP configuration on the nginx server, test via browser, and delete it after testing on Ubuntu 18.04.

Configure a domain to point to your nginx server by updating name servers to DigitalOcean, then set the DNS zone file in DigitalOcean and serve the homepage with nginx.

Configure a dns zone file in digital ocean by adding A records for @ and www that point to the floating IP, with TTL 120 seconds and account for propagation.

Open the nginx block file and update the server_name directive to include both www and non-www domain variations. Reload the server and verify access via domain names after DNS propagation.

Install Certbot and use the nginx plugin to obtain a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate for both domain variations, verify nginx server_name, redirect all traffic to https, and enable auto renewal.

Install phpMyAdmin to manage databases via a web-based GUI, configure its database with db config, link to the nginx root, and restart php to verify access.

secure phpMyAdmin by renaming the symbolic link to a non-obvious name, then verify access via the new url, adding a layer of security.

Configure a secure access layer for phpMyAdmin by setting up an nginx authentication gateway and storing an encrypted password in a PMA_pass file, guarding login with a username and password.

Configure nginx with an authentication gateway for phpMyAdmin by adding a location block, defining auth_basic and auth_basic_user_file, and restarting the server to enforce login.

Install WordPress on a configured server and explore a flexible content management system that powers blogs, membership sites, and e-commerce with the WordPress frontend admin panel.

Create a WordPress database in MySQL, then create a WordPress user with grant all privileges, flush privileges, and exit MySQL.

Install the essential PHP extensions for WordPress, update the apt package index, install required packages, and restart PHP FPM to enable new features on a cloud server.

Configure the nginx block file to serve favicon.ico and robots.txt from cache, cache image formats as static content, adjust the try_files directive for WordPress permalinks, then test and reload.

Install WordPress on a cloud server by downloading the latest version from the WordPress website, extracting it, configuring wp-config.php, moving files to the HTML directory, and setting proper permissions.

Configure WordPress on a cloud server by updating the config file with secret keys and database settings, then enable direct filesystem access with fs_method_direct to avoid ftp prompts.

Set up WordPress by selecting language, naming your site, and creating a secure login. Access the dashboard, log in via wp-login.php, and enable SEO plugins to optimize indexing.

Navigate the AWS console, services, and regional scopes with confidence while understanding billing, budgeting, and security practices across cross-cloud options with Digital Ocean and Linode.

Master AWS pricing foundations by learning pay-per-use billing for storage, compute, RAM, and data transfer, and how volume discounts and reserved upfront options affect costs.

Discover the AWS free tier, set up a free account, run EC2 t2/t3 micro instances, and explore storage options (EBS, S3, EFS) and DB t2 micro databases with data transfer.

Review the AWS acceptable use policy to understand prohibited uses, monitoring and enforcement, and consequences. Learn to review related legal agreements and the privacy policy to stay compliant.

Register an AWS account to access the free tier, complete billing and identity verification, and explore the AWS management console, services, regions, and learning resources.

Survey the AWS cloud practitioner exam topics, covering IAM, compute, storage, networking, databases, content delivery, monitoring, and security services like CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and GuardDuty.

Explore the difference between global and regional AWS services, learn how regions and availability zones enable high availability and fault tolerance, and examine the role of AWS local zones.

Examine global versus regional AWS services with IAM as global, EC2 as regional, and Route 53 and CloudFront as global, while S3 storage offers regional proximity to reduce latency.

Configure AWS billing alerts with CloudWatch and SNS to email you when estimated charges exceed a threshold, such as $10, including free tier limits and subscription confirmation.

Secure your AWS root account by enabling multi-factor authentication with knowledge and possession factors, using Google Authenticator on your phone to require a one-time code at sign-in.

Enable MFA on the AWS root account using a virtual MFA device with Google Authenticator, scan the QR code, enter two codes, and verify the login.

Create an IAM user and an admin group, assign the administrator access policy for console and programmatic access, and securely manage access keys and credentials.

Learn to configure a custom sign-in link for IAM users, create a unique alias, sign in as the new administrative user, enforce initial password change, and enable MFA.

Configure a password policy for your AWS account to enforce strong IAM user sign-ins, with eight characters, upper and lower case, a number, and a non alphanumeric character; save changes.

Demonstrate creating and downloading an IAM credentials report in AWS to review user activity, password and access key rotation, MFA status, and other key security data for compliance.

Explore Amazon EC2 as the computational backbone of AWS, including virtualization, instance configurations, and deploying scalable compute resources with AMIs across Linux and Windows.

Explore AWS EC2 core features, including AMIs, instance types, storage options (EBS and instance store), security groups, key pairs, elastic IP, regions and availability zones, and ELB with ASG.

Explore Amazon EC2 instance types across general purpose, compute optimized, memory optimized, and more, with scalable upgrades and downgrades, and an introduction to Amazon machine images.

Explore Amazon machine images (AMIs) for EC2 deployment, including EBS vs instance store, snapshots, S3 templates, launch permissions, block device mappings, and marketplace, community, and custom AMIs.

Create an IAM user with programmatic and console access, attach admin permissions, securely store access keys, and log into the AWS management console to explore the EC2 dashboard.

Navigate the Amazon EC2 dashboard, manage instances, images, EBS, and networking, and learn to launch an instance, switch regions, and review service health and availability zones.

Launch and configure a free-tier ec2 instance using the amazon linux 2 ami, enable ebs storage, and deploy a basic web page with apache via user data.

Configure a new security group with SSH and HTTP rules to secure an EC2 instance, generate a key pair, download the PEM file, and launch the instance.

Navigate the EC2 dashboard to view instance details, including public and private IPv4 addresses. See how an IP changes after restart and how elastic IP addresses prevent it.

Understand the elastic IP feature in AWS: attach a reserved IP to EC2 instances and transfer it within a region. Delete an elastic IP when it is unassociated.

Allocate and attach an elastic IP to your EC2 instance to create a reserved public IP that persists across restarts, verify in the instance summary, and test http access.

Manage EC2 instances by stopping, starting, rebooting, or terminating, preserving data on persistent volumes and using elastic IPs to maintain a public address; disassociate or release IPs to avoid charges.

Create and use a launch template to streamline launching EC2 instances from a saved configuration, including AMI, instance type, network, storage, security groups, and optional user data.

Create an IAM user named Sam with programmatic and console access, attach an inline JSON policy for S3 full access named custom three for Sam, then review and save.

Explore IAM roles as identities with policies that grant temporary credentials and permissions to users, apps, or services, including cross-account access, EC2 actions, and securing mobile apps.

Create an AMI from an existing EC2 instance, including EBS volumes and block device mappings, then launch a new instance and enable HTTP via the security group.

Attach an IAM role to an EC2 instance to grant Amazon S3 full access, allowing applications on EC2 to read and write S3 storage.

Learn how AWS security groups act as virtual firewalls for instances in a VPC, up to five per instance, defining inbound and outbound rules and access control.

Explore how to configure security groups in the AWS console, enabling SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS traffic while managing inbound and outbound rules for a secure VPC.

Administer an AWS EC2 instance via SSH command lines securely. Use PuTTY for Windows, terminal on Mac/Linux, or EC2 instance connect for remote access.

Learn to connect to an Amazon EC2 instance via Putty, convert a PEM key to PPK with Putty Gen, configure ssh, and run basic yum update commands.

Learn to SSH into an Amazon Linux 2 EC2 instance via the web-based EC2 Instance Connect client, verify with ec2-user and IPv4 DNS, then run update and upgrade commands.

Compare AWS storage types—S3 object storage, EBS block storage, and EFS file storage—across pricing, durability, availability, security, backups, performance, and common use cases.

Explore amazon elastic block store for EC2: persistent block storage mounted as devices and retained across restarts, with gp2 and io1 types, encryption, and snapshots for data portability.

Sign in with a non-root AWS account, launch an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS EC2 instance, attach two gp2 EBS volumes, and configure security groups for SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS.

Manage Amazon elastic block store volumes on AWS by viewing root and secondary volumes, detaching and attaching them, and using the EBS volumes console to create, modify, or delete volumes.

Explore Amazon EBS snapshots and learn they are stored as S3 objects, are incremental backups, and create exact replica volumes that load data in the background across zones or regions.

Create a demo snapshot from an EBS volume, view its details and completed status, then build a volume from the snapshot and learn about deleting the volume or snapshot.

Explore AMIs and learn to create an AMI from an existing instance to launch new ones, covering launch permissions and sources like AWS Marketplace, Community AMIs, and your own.

Launch an EC2 instance in US East 1, create an AMI with EBS snapshots and a user data script that installs Httpd, then launch additional instances from the AMI.

Create an AMI from an EC2 instance, then launch a new instance from that AMI and verify the updated Apache page via the public IPv4 address.

Explore how Amazon EC2 Image Builder streamlines building, testing, and deploying secure, up-to-date VM and container images on AWS with automated validation and centralized policy enforcement.

Learn to build an EC2 image pipeline with image recipes, infrastructure, and distribution settings. Include CloudWatch agent, AWS CLI, and Amazon Corretto while using Amazon Linux 2 AMI.

Learn to run an EC2 image builder pipeline to build, test, and deploy an AMI in us-east-1, and verify AWS CLI, OpenJDK Corretto, and CloudWatch agent.

Explore Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) as scalable, shared Linux file storage for EC2 instances across multiple availability zones, with high availability, durability, security, and lifecycle options.

Deploy an EC2 instance with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and configure a security group. Create an elastic file system, mount it to the EC2, and connect via SSH to update packages.

Create and configure an elastic file system (EFS) in AWS, then mount it to an Ubuntu EC2 instance using DNS and the NFS client, while exploring EFS manager features.

Mount an elastic file system to an EC2 Ubuntu instance on AWS via NFS, creating an EFS directory, securing with security groups, installing nfs-common, and verifying the mount.

Upload files to a mounted EFS on an AWS EC2 instance using Cyberduck via sftp, verify write permissions, and confirm file presence from the Ubuntu system.

Learn how to automatically attach an elastic file system to an EC2 instance during deployment, enabling a shared file system accessible by two instances without manual mounting.

Clean up AWS resources by terminating unused EC2 instances, deleting unused security groups (excluding default), and removing the EFS file system to tidy the account.

Explore how aws provisions highly available, scalable resources with elastic load balancers, auto scaling groups, and Route 53 to distribute traffic.

Explore high availability by distributing data across multiple availability zones and regions with AWS services like EC2, S3, EFS, and EBS, while deploying elastic load balancing and auto scaling groups.

Explore how elastic load balancers distribute traffic across healthy EC2 targets via listeners and target groups with health checks across availability zones, focusing on application load balancers for http traffic.

Manage EC2 instances with a load balancer using auto scaling groups to scale out and in based on health checks, CPU metrics, and launch templates.

Configure an elastic load balancer with an auto scaling group, creating a launch template and ami from an Ubuntu 20.04 lts Apache server to distribute http requests.

Configure an application load balancer to distribute HTTP traffic across two healthy EC2 instances via a single public endpoint, with health checks, multiple availability zones, and target groups.

Create an AWS launch template for EC2 auto scaling by configuring AMI, instance type, key pair, and security groups, then review and attach to a group.

Learn how autoscaling groups in AWS automatically deploy or terminate EC2 instances based on application load, integrated with an application load balancer for high availability.

Explore auto scaling strategies to adapt application load, including manual, dynamic, target tracking, step and simple scaling, predictive, and scheduled scaling, with hands-on AWS demonstrations.

Explore dynamic scaling in AWS auto scaling groups with target tracking, scaling policies, and step and simple policies, using CloudWatch alarms to maintain CPU utilization near 50%.

Compare step scaling and simple scaling as dynamic strategies using cloudwatch alarms to trigger auto scaling. Configure a step scaling policy, set CPU thresholds, and adjust capacity in AWS console.

Learn how to create AWS predictive scaling policies for EC2 auto scaling groups, using forecasts from historical data to scale out in advance for cyclical traffic and recurring workloads.

Learn how to configure scheduled scaling for EC2 instances using autoscaling groups, set scheduled actions with recurrence options, and use cron jobs to automate capacity changes.

Discover the foundations of Amazon VPC, subnets, and public versus private IP addresses, and see how Route 53 DNS routes users to internet applications within AWS infrastructure.

Demystify how DNS and Amazon Route 53 translate domain names into IP addresses, routing users to AWS resources like EC2, load balancers, or S3.

Register a domain with Amazon Route 53, create a hosted zone, and route internet traffic to AWS resources; perform health checks and manage domain registration from the Route 53 dashboard.

Navigate the domain dashboard and hosted zones in Route 53, and learn DNS records like A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, and TXT for routing and ownership verification.

Configure a Route 53 hosted zone by creating an A record pointing the domain to the EC2 instance's IPv4 address (Apache) and a CNAME for www.

Clean up your cloud account by deleting A and CNAME records, terminating the EC2 instance, and removing the elastic load balancer and elastic block store volumes to avoid charges.