When I decided to build my personal website, I didn’t want:

• No-code builders
• Managed hosting
• Black-box platforms

I wanted control.

This part covers every step from buying a domain to serving your website securely over HTTPS on a VPS.

Architecture Overview

graph TD
    A[Domain - GoDaddy] -->|A record → VPS IP| B[DNS]
    B --> C[Ubuntu VPS - Hostinger]
    C --> D[Nginx]
    D --> E[Static Website - /var/www/domain]

Step 1 — Buy a Domain

I bought rayeen.in from GoDaddy.

Immediately after purchase:

1. Go to DNS Management
2. Remove any default A record pointing to Website Builder or Parking
3. Add the following records:

The CNAME is optional but recommended.

Verify:

ping rayeen.in

It should return your VPS IP.

Step 2 — Buy a VPS (Hostinger)

I went with Hostinger VPS — affordable, solid performance, and gives you full root access.

When purchasing:

1. Choose a plan that fits your needs (even the cheapest tier works for a personal site + a few services)
2. Select Ubuntu as the OS (I went with Ubuntu 22.04)
3. Pick a data center closest to your target audience
4. During setup, set a root password or add your SSH public key

Once provisioned, Hostinger gives you a VPS IP address — this is what you’ll point your domain to.

Copy that IP. You’ll need it for the DNS A record (Step 1) and for SSH access next.

Step 3 — Prepare the VPS

SSH into your server:

ssh root@YOUR_VPS_IP

Update the system:

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Install required software:

apt install nginx docker.io docker-compose ufw certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y

Enable the firewall:

ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
ufw enable

We only expose ports 22, 80, and 443. No other ports.

Step 4 — Remove Default Nginx Site

Ubuntu ships with a default catch-all config. Remove it to prevent routing conflicts later:

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
rm /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
systemctl reload nginx

Step 5 — Create Website Directory

mkdir -p /var/www/rayeen.in
nano /var/www/rayeen.in/index.html

Add test HTML:

<h1>Hello from Rayeen's VPS</h1>

Step 6 — Create Nginx Server Block

Create the config:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/rayeen

Add:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name rayeen.in www.rayeen.in;

    root /var/www/rayeen.in;
    index index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

Enable it:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/rayeen /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t
systemctl reload nginx

Now test by visiting http://rayeen.in.

Step 7 — Add HTTPS (Let’s Encrypt)

Install the certificate:

certbot --nginx -d rayeen.in -d www.rayeen.in

Choose redirect to HTTPS when prompted.

Now https://rayeen.in serves your site with a valid SSL certificate. You have a production-grade static site.

What We Achieved

• Domain → VPS routing
• Clean Nginx setup with no default catch-all
• HTTPS enforced via Let’s Encrypt
• Firewall configured (only 22, 80, 443)
• Production-ready static hosting

This is a real foundation. But manual deployments? That’s technical debt. In Part 2, we set up GitHub Actions for automatic deployment on every push.