A developer documented their first DevOps project: deploying a static website on an Ubuntu VM using Nginx. They installed the server, placed HTML/CSS files in `/var/www/html`, and configured permissions. A successful `curl -I` check returned a 200 OK, confirming the site was live and accessible.

This hands-on exercise reinforces core web hosting fundamentals. Using Nginx for static content is a common industry practice due to its speed and low resource footprint. Understanding Linux file permissions is critical for secure deployments, preventing common issues where services can't read web root files.

The author emphasized logging and HTTP status codes as essential troubleshooting tools. Ensuring the service starts on boot is a key DevOps step for reliability. This foundational project builds confidence for more complex deployments, like containerized apps or dynamic backend services, which are common next steps in a DevOps learning path.