If I understand things correctly there are two ways of configuring your discourse instance behind an NGINX server:
1. with a socket connection (as described [here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/running-other-websites-on-the-same-machine-as-discourse/17247))
2. by exposing some port of the container and telling the outer NGINX to forward traffic for discourse to that port (as suggested [here](https://blog.khophi.co/install-run-discourse-behind-nginx-right-way-first-time/) and [here](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/need-help-with-installing-discourse-and-wordpress)).
Since the [how-to here on meta](https://meta.discourse.org/t/running-other-websites-on-the-same-machine-as-discourse/17247) uses the socket method, I suppose that is the preferred method. But what exactly are the benefits compared to the port-method?
I can’t seem to get the the socket version to work even though I followed the [instructions here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/running-other-websites-on-the-same-machine-as-discourse/17247). I just get ERR\_CONNECTION\_REFUSED when trying to access the discourse subdomain. Other webpages served by the same NGINX are working fine.
---
UNIX sockets (as opposed to TCP sockets) are faster and more efficient, and less prone to accidental disclosure to places you don’t want connections coming from. A misconfiguration can potentially cause a listening TCP socket to be exposed to the Internet, whereas there’s absolutely no way you can make a mistake such that a UNIX socket is exposed directly to the Internet.
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OK, so I’ll continue trying the UNIX socket. What would be some steps for trouble shooting why a UNIX socket is not working? (I already have the `default_server` listening on port 81 for the time being, just to have it out of the way)
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I think there is a typo in the tutorial. At the end of the first line is a colon too much. Don’t forget to rebuild!
For https installations It should be:
```plaintext
proxy_pass http://unix:/var/discourse/shared/standalone/nginx.http.sock;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto "https";
```
Remove the last line if you do not use https. If this does not work, please type the following at the console and show us the result:
```plaintext
ls -al /var/discourse/shared/standalone/nginx.http.sock
updatedb && locate nginx.http.sock
```
If “locate” ist not found, you can install it:
```plaintext
apt-get install locate
```
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> [@Lutz](#):
>
> I think there is a typo in the tutorial. At the end of the first line is a colon too much. Don’t forget to rebuild!
I already tried both with and without the extra colon. But good to know that it should definitely be without the colon. Regarding rebuild: this is the config for the outer NGINX, so I don’t see why a rebuilt would be necessary. Or did I miss something? Or do you mean restart the NGINX?
> [@Lutz](#):
>
> For https installations It should be:
I am on http for the moment, just to avoid any additional sources of error. This is my discourse.conf:
```
server {
listen 80; listen [::]:80;
server_name test.mydomain.com;
}
location / {
proxy_pass http://unix:/var/discourse/shared/standalone/nginx.http.sock:;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
}
}
```
`ls -al /var/discourse/shared/standalone/nginx.http.sock` gives me
`srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Mar 29 02:53 /var/discourse/shared/standalone/nginx.http.sock`
`sudo updatedb && locate nginx.http.sock`gives me (after quite a bit of delay)
`/var/discourse/shared/standalone/nginx.http.sock`
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> [@kraml](#):
>
> You need to put the whole location block inside the server block.
Opps, how embarassing. 😵 But also interesting that ` sudo nginx -t` did not complain about the extra }.
Unfortunately, however, that was apparently not the only problem as I still get ERR\_CONNECTION\_REFUSED ☹
---
Yes, the error is on a client machine. Okay, then I suspect the problem is with my `/etc/nginx/sites-available/default`. For the time being I set it to listen to port 81:
```
server {
listen 81 default_server;
listen [::]:81 default_server;
server_name 88.99. **.** mydomain.net www.mydomain.net;
```
In my mind, this should imply that `/etc/nginx/sites-available/default` will not interfere with the settings in `discourse.conf` and indeed: if I change the defauklt server to port 80, I get the BGINX welcome page instead of ERR\_CONNECTION\_REFUSED.
So maybe my discourse.conf is simply not being included in the `nginx.conf`? That would also explain why NGINX din’t complain about the extra }… And indeed, I had my discourse.conf in the wrong path (`sites-available` instead of `sites-enabled`).
But when I fixed that, I saw the NGINX welcome page even when calling [test.mydomain.net](http://test.mydomain.net). So, for lack of other ideas, I tried starting the conainer but uit said it was already started. So I stopped and re-started it and now I’m getting 502 bad gateway.
So I did a cleanup based on [this suggestion](https://meta.discourse.org/t/502-bad-gateway-nginx-issue/44391/3) (plus a stop and restart of the container) and tada it is finally working. 🎉
So, to draw some lessons from this that might be useful for others: what puzzles me is how exactly the container interacts with the outer NGINX. As I indicated earlier, I was assuming that they are two separate entities that are merely linked in that they are sending packets back and forth between them. In other words: changes in the NGINX-configuration will not affect the container at all, as long as those packets are still sent back and forth. But now it looks like the container “fixed itself” after I fixed the outer NGINX?!?
Or maybe this is just a combination of several independent issues? In other words: if I had done a container cleanup earlier, and then fixed the outer NGINX, the result would have been the same?
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Sorry, I can’t help you with this. The first and (almost) last time I looked at the details of NGINX was three years ago, when I set up my forum… And I have no experience with multi-site at all.
