How to install Nginx in Docker-Compose

In this article, we will look at how to install Nginx using Docker Compose on a host server and configure it so that you can view the index.html file in a browser on port 9999.

Installing Docker and Docker Compose

Before you start, make sure you have Docker and Docker Compose installed on your host server. If they are not yet installed, you can install them by following the instructions for Docker for Centos 7 and for Ubuntu 20.04 and Docker Compose.

Creating the index.html file on the host server

The first step is to create the index.html file on the host server. We will use it to demonstrate Nginx when we run it in a Docker container. You can create this file anywhere on the host server where you have write access. In this example, we will create it in the /var/www/html directory.

Run the following command to create the directory and navigate to it:

mkdir -p /var/www/html && cd /var/www/html

Let's create the index.html file

vim index.html

Insert the following code into it:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Hello, Nginx!</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello, Nginx!</h1>
    <p>This is a test page served by Nginx in a Docker container.</p>
</body>
</html>

Save the file in any convenient location on the host server. In this example, we will save the file in the /var/www/html directory.

Creating the docker-compose.yaml file

We need to create the docker-compose.yaml file, which defines the Nginx container and its configuration. This file can be created anywhere on the host server where you have write access. In this example, we will create it in the /opt/nginx directory.

Run the following command to create the directory and file:

mkdir -p /opt/nginx && cd /opt/nginx

vim /opt/nginx/docker-compose.yaml

Add the following content to the docker-compose.yaml file:

version: '3'

services:
  nginx:
    image: nginx:latest
    ports:
      - "9999:80"
    volumes:
      - /var/www/html:/usr/share/nginx/html
    restart: always

Where:

services - defines the list of services we want to run using Docker Compose.
nginx - is the name of the service we want to run.
image - specifies the Docker image we want to use. In this case, we are using the official Nginx image tagged as latest.
ports - defines the port mapping between the host machine and the container. In this case, we map port 9999 on the host machine to port 80 in the container.
volumes - defines the volume we want to use for storing data inside the container. In this case, we mount the /var/www/html directory on the host machine to the /usr/share/nginx/html directory in the container.
restart - specifies whether Docker should automatically restart the container if it stops. In this case, we indicate that the container should always restart.

Running Docker Compose

Now we are ready to run the Nginx container using Docker Compose. To do this, run the following command from the directory where the docker-compose.yaml file is located:

docker-compose up -d

This command will start the Nginx container in the background and output its ID.

You can check if the container is running with the command:

docker-compose ps

Checking Nginx

Now we can check the operation of Nginx by opening a web browser and navigating to http://<host server address>:9999. In our example, this will be http://IP:9999.
If everything is set up correctly, you should see the "Hello, Nginx!" page.

That's it! Now you can use Docker Compose to manage Nginx containers and other applications on your host server.

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