Guides

NGINX

This example uses Nginx, one of the most popular web servers. Nginx can be used with Unikraft / Unikraft Cloud to serve static web content.

To run this example, follow these steps:

Install the kraft CLI tool and a container runtime engine, e.g. Docker.
Clone the examples repository and cd into the examples/nginx/ directory:

Code
 
git clone https://github.com/kraftcloud/examples
cd examples/nginx/

Make sure to log into Unikraft Cloud by setting your token and a metro close to you. We use fra0 (Frankfurt, 🇩🇪) in this guide:

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# Set Unikraft Cloud access token
export UKC_TOKEN=token
# Set metro to Frankfurt, DE
export UKC_METRO=fra0

When done, invoke the following command to deploy this application on Unikraft Cloud:

Code
 
kraft cloud deploy -p 443:8080 .

The output shows the instance URL and other details:

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[●] Deployed successfully!
 │
 ├────────── name: nginx-67zbu
 ├────────── uuid: 8a8bc1b9-0af6-420e-a426-190dc2da9eaa
 ├───────── state: running
 ├─────────── url: https://nameless-fog-0tvh1uov.fra0.kraft.host
 ├───────── image: sha256:f51ecc121c9ca34abb88a2bc6a69765501304f7893f7e85af15fbec3dc86e2bd
 ├───── boot time: 11.13ms
 ├──────── memory: 128 MiB
 ├─────── service: nameless-fog-0tvh1uov
 ├── private fqdn: nginx-67zbu.internal
 ├──── private ip: 172.16.3.3
 └────────── args: /usr/bin/nginx -c /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

In this case, the instance name is nginx-67zbu and the URL is https://nameless-fog-0tvh1uov.fra0.kraft.host. They are different for each run.

Use curl to query the Unikraft Cloud instance of Nginx.

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curl https://nameless-fog-0tvh1uov.fra0.kraft.host

Code
 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to nginx!</title>
[...]

At any point in time, you can list information about the instance:

Code
 
kraft cloud instance list

Code
 
NAME                           FQDN                                      STATE    CREATED AT     IMAGE                               MEMORY   ARGS                                     BOOT TIME
nginx-67zbu                    nameless-fog-0tvh1uov.fra0.kraft.host    running  5 minutes ago  nginx@sha256:f51ecc121c9ca34abb...  128 MiB  /usr/bin/nginx -c /etc/nginx/nginx.conf  11129us

When done, you can remove the instance:

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kraft cloud instance remove nameless-fog-0tvh1uov.fra0.kraft.host

Customize your Application

To customize the Nginx application, update the files in the repository, listed below:

Kraftfile: the Unikraft Cloud specification
rootfs/wwwroot/index.html: the index page of the content served
rootfs/conf/nginx.conf: the Nginx configuration file

Update the contents of the rootfs/wwwroot/ directory to serve different static web content. For example, you could change the contents of rootfs/wwwroot/index.html to:

Code
 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Hello, World!</h2>
</body>
</html>

After re-deploying the Nginx image on Unikraft Cloud, using curl or a browser to query it will present the new page contents.

The static web content located in the rootfs/wwwroot/ can of course be generated offline by tools like Jekyll or Hugo.

If required, you can also customize the configuration of Nginx in rootfs/conf/nginx.conf. You can set a new webroot (different than wwwroot), or a different internal port, or a different index page, etc.

Learn More

Use the --help option for detailed information on using Unikraft Cloud:

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kraft cloud --help

Or visit the CLI Reference.

Last modified on September 9, 2025

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