I really love nginx for it's simplicity, versatility, and performance. It doesn't take much to build some pretty powerful stuff with it.

This is a sample nginx config which demonstrates a number of useful settings for using it as both a static file server and/or a reverse proxy (and semi-load balancer) to 1 or more server applications. I've put this here mostly for my own reference, but that doesn't mean it can't be a good reference for you too :)

The idea is to have one app-specific.conf file, with a singular server block, per website/app which is being controlled by nginx. These settings are different from the global settings found in the main nginx.conf file and should be tailored to the needs of your website/app.

NOTE: what I mean by "app specific config" is a config file that would live in /etc/nginx/sites-available which you would link to from /etc/nginx/sites-enabled. The main nginx.conf will automatically load anything that's in sites-enabled by includeing it.

You may alternatively want to create a Docker image to encapsulate your whole nginx environment and maybe use it as a microservice amongst some other containers. For example, I've used this method to create a nginx front-end to act as a simple load-balancer, reverse proxy, and SSL terminator that connects a number of other back-end service containers and to serve some static content such as documentation.

In this scenario, because the environment is greatly simplified and singular (the entire system is only for running nginx), I would opt for combining the above app-specific config file with the main nginx.conf since it likely will only be doing that one thing ;)

I find that using nginx in front of my (in my case, Nodejs) applications is a really great (read: feature-rich, performant, and easy-to-setup) solution for handling low to decently-sized loads that helps me hit the ground running. When I have later proven my app to be successful, and as it develops resource requirements which can no longer be handled by simple vertical scaling techniques, I can then implement a more sophisticated, automated, horizontal scaling solution (e.g., a la kubernetes/docker variety). But when I'm just starting a new project, proving an MVP, or deploying something that isn't intended for mass bandwidth, using nginx as my server's frontend is just about right.

Nginx can handle terminating SSL/TLS connections and then (behind nginx) use a plain http connection to the application (this connection is internal, so it should be secured by the host's network security). The application itself will have no outside public-facing ports opened so that the only way of connecting to it will be through nginx.

By choosing sensible settings in the config, you can easily get a "A" rating on SSL Lab's Test. I usually choose to support only TLS 1.2+, 2048+ bit keys, and modern ciphers. You can get strong, free, certs from Letsencrypt too.

The default nginx version on Ubuntu 14 is a bit old (e.g., 1.4), but it's easy to upgrade to the latest version using nginx's own stable repo:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nginx/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get upgrade nginx
sudo service nginx restart

That said, Ubuntu 16 comes with nginx 1.10 which is compatible with the configs I'm showing here.

Mozilla has a great online SSL Config Generator that you can use to get some solid suggestions for your setup (not just nginx).