In order to perform simple tests, such as connecting to the server with a web browser, we need to set up a website for Nginx to serve. A test page comes with the default package in the html folder (/usr/local/nginx/html/index.html) and the original nginx.conf is configured to serve this page. Here is the section that we are interested in for now:

http { 
    include       mime.types; 
    default_type  application/octet-stream; 
    sendfile        on; 
    keepalive_timeout  65; 
    server { 
        listen       80; 
        server_name  localhost; 
        location / { 
            root   html; 
            index  index.html index.htm; 
        } 
        error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html; 
        location = /50x.html { 
            root   html; 
        } 
} 

As you can perhaps already tell, this segment configures Nginx to serve a website:

• By opening a listening socket on port: 80
• Accessible at the address: http://localhost/
• With the index page: index.html

For more details about these directives, please refer to Chapter 3, HTTP Configuration, and go to the HTTP module configuration section. Anyhow, fire up your favorite web browser and visit http://localhost/:

You should be greeted with a welcome message; if you aren't, then check the configuration again and make sure you reloaded Nginx in order to apply the changes.