How To Run Nginx in a Docker Container on Ubuntu 22.04

Introduction

Nginx is an open source web server used for serving static or dynamic websites, reverse proxying, load balancing, and other HTTP and proxy server capabilities. It was built to handle large amounts of concurrent connections, and is a popular web server used to host some of the largest and most high-traffic sites on the internet.

Docker is a popular open source containerization tool used to provide a portable and consistent runtime environment for software applications, while consuming less resources than a traditional server or virtual machine. Docker uses containers, isolated user-space environments that run at the operating system level and share system resources such as the kernel and the filesystem.

By containerizing Nginx, it is possible to cut down on some system administration overhead. For instance, you won’t have to manage Nginx through a package manager or build it from source. The Docker container allows you to replace the whole container when a new version of Nginx is released. This way, you only need to maintain the Nginx configuration file and your content.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to serve a small web page by configuring Nginx with a Docker container.