Deploy Nginx Config with GitHub Actions

Treat server config like code: review it in a pull request, validate it with nginx -t in CI, and deploy it only from the main branch. A failed test then can never take a site down.

Test in CI

Run nginx -t against the changed files before merge so syntax errors are caught in the pull request.

docker run --rm -v "$PWD/conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d:ro" nginx:stable nginx -t

Deploy safely

Copy files over SSH, run nginx -t on the server, and reload only if it exits zero. Pin the host key instead of trusting on first use.

Open the CI/CD snippets generator

Frequently asked questions

Reload or restart?

Reload. It applies the new config gracefully and keeps the old workers if the new config is invalid.

Guides

• Nginx Reverse Proxy Configuration
• Caddy Reverse Proxy Configuration
• Nginx Static Site Configuration
• Caddy Static Site Configuration
• Nginx + PHP-FPM Configuration
• Caddy + PHP-FPM Configuration
• Nginx SSL/TLS Configuration
• Nginx Load Balancer Configuration
• Caddy Load Balancer Configuration
• Nginx Rate Limiting Configuration
• Nginx Security Headers Configuration
• Caddy Security Headers Configuration
• Nginx Gzip Compression Configuration
• Nginx Caching Configuration
• Caddy HTTPS Redirect Configuration
• Nginx WebSocket Proxy Configuration
• Nginx Content-Security-Policy Header
• Block Bad Bots and Scanners in Nginx
• fail2ban for Nginx
• nginx.conf Best Practices
• Nginx Location Regex Tester
• Deploy Nginx Config with GitHub Actions