# Discourse installation on Azure not reachable
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [December 18, 2015, 7:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880 "2015-12-18T07:14:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Abhay\_Ghatpande](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Abhay_Ghatpande)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2015, 7:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/1 "2015-12-18T07:14:07Z")
I created a new Ubuntu 14.04 VM on Microsoft Azure and installed Discourse using the guide here: [discourse/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md at main · discourse/discourse · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md)
The entire installation went perfectly, but the instance is not reachable publicly. I have the A record configured to the public IP given by Azure. I also tried using the IP address directly.
I suspect this has something to do with the Docker IP and the Eth0 IP address, but not sure how to solve it.
```plaintext
# ifconfig
docker0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 02:42:4c:29:e0:92
inet addr:172.17.0.1 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::42:4cff:fe29:e092/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:6144 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:21683 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:414603 (414.6 KB) TX bytes:30771613 (30.7 MB)
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0d:3a:00:15:21
inet addr:10.0.0.4 Bcast:10.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20d:3aff:fe00:1521/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1079091 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:634212 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1254465906 (1.2 GB) TX bytes:318586926 (318.5 MB)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:7245 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:7245 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:986455 (986.4 KB) TX bytes:986455 (986.4 KB)
vethcb56e42 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 6a:43:07:bb:63:3f
inet6 addr: fe80::6843:7ff:febb:633f/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2717 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2896 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:225111 (225.1 KB) TX bytes:3277314 (3.2 MB)
```
So essentially I have 3 IPs: the public IP, the eth0 IP on the VPN, and then the docker instance IP. I’m guessing I need to somehow route the public IP:80 port to the docker IP?
Please help. Thank you.
---
### Author:  [@techAPJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/techAPJ)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2015, 7:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/2 "2015-12-18T07:58:38Z")
Currently we do not officially support Discourse installation on Microsoft Azure. We recommend using [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/).
Supporting Discourse installation on Microsoft Azure is on my to-do list and I plan to make a how-to guide for same by the end of January 2016.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2015, 8:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/3 "2015-12-18T08:36:22Z")
Provided Docker installed correctly, I am unclear why the current guide would not work..
---
### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2015, 8:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/4 "2015-12-18T08:44:33Z")
Crazy cloud shenanigans likely get in the way – there’s probably some equivalent of AWS’ security groups, or perhaps the networking stack needs an extra kick in the pants.
---
### Author:  [@Abhay\_Ghatpande](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Abhay_Ghatpande)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/5 "2015-12-18T14:32:16Z")
So I sort of found the problem, but not the cure. As expected it has to do with the port forwarding/mapping/routing issue.
Azure VMs are part of a resource group with a common virtual public IP and a VPN/subnet for individual machines. Then there is a Network Security Group, with which one has to define some NAT rules.
I did setup forwarding for the Docker ports, but to no avail. Now trying to diagnose using Docker documentation. Jeff is right, once Docker works correctly, Discourse will work too.
The Azure classic VM should be better because they allow mapping of specific endpoints (ports). Will try installing in one of those.
Will post my updates. For better or for worse, I’m stuck with Azure at the moment.
---
### Author:  [@Abhay\_Ghatpande](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Abhay_Ghatpande)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2015, 1:43am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/6 "2015-12-19T01:43:09Z")
Ok. So I discarded the instance of Ubuntu and created a new Ubuntu VM of the _classic_ type. Then I chose a fixed Instance IP address. Then I created two endpoints for TCP/80 and TCP/443 to forward from the public to private network. Also I installed Docker from the instructions for Ubuntu and not the script directly.
I’m not sure which of these steps helped, but now Discourse works on Azure!
Thank you all!
---
### Author:  [@Bernd12](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bernd12)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/7 "2016-07-11T16:20:04Z")
Hi there!
Resetting my discourse installation on azure, I cannot reach it anymore!
It was working before, but by now, it doesn’t! I map the public ports to the vm and inside the vm to the docker installation. It all worked before.
Any idea where to start over? Where to check, what is up and running? Docker is running (according to pgrep).
Any help appreciated!
Bernd
---
### Author:  [@Bernd12](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bernd12)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/8 "2016-09-04T16:40:31Z")
I finally switched to digital ocean, where it works out of the box. The VM classic type seems not to be available anymore at Azure? Tried to setup an instance without success…
Regards,
Bernd
---
### Author:  [@toraritte](https://meta.discourse.org/u/toraritte)
#### Post date: [August 14, 2021, 1:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/9 "2021-08-14T01:36:17Z")
Hate to bump this topic, but it is still relevant. Everything installs beautifully Discourse-wise, all seems fine, but ports 80 and 443 are publicly unreachable.
* * *
**update** : The [basic install](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/main/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md) **does** work out of the box on Azure on Ubuntu Server.
These are what I did differently the second time around:
1. **After VM creation and calling `discourse-setup`, I didn’t interrupt the process** , so everything was run in one go.
2. **Set up swap space manually** according to [this meta.discourse thread](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-setup-discourse-on-azure/89550).
It is possible that the first instance could have been saved but Discourse’s architecture is still a mystery to me, and not sure how to restart HTTP/HTTPS endpoints. When comparing `netstat -tulpn` outputs, it is clear that in the first instance, all the relevant services seem to run and listen on the right ports (e.g., PostgreSQL on 5432, Redis on 6379, etc.) and the only 2 entries missing are the 80 and 443 ports (suggesting that nginx wasn’t running):
1st (failed) instance:
```plaintext
$ sudo -s
# docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
62396a99737c local_discourse/app "/sbin/boot" 14 hours ago Up 14 hours 0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp, :::80->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp, :::443->443/tcp app
# docker exec -it 62396a99737c bash
(docker)# netstat -tulpn
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name
tcp 127.0.0.1:3000 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0.0.0.0:5432 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0.0.0.0:6379 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp6 :::5432 :::* LISTEN -
tcp6 :::6379 :::* LISTEN -
```
Second instance:
```plaintext
(docker)# netstat -tulpn
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name
tcp 0.0.0.0:6379 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2359/nginx: master
tcp 127.0.0.1:3000 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0.0.0.0:5432 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0.0.0.0:443 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2359/nginx: master
tcp6 :::6379 :::* LISTEN -
tcp6 :::5432 :::* LISTEN -
```
Couple notes for future self:
1. The first time around, I noticed the lack of 80 and 443 listener ports, but saw the `127.0.0.1:3000` socket (which I remembered to be the default Rails one). It didn’t dawn on me yet that maybe nginx wasn’t running, and for some reason I still suspected Docker port mappings to be the culprit, so I did a basic redirect with netcat:
2. I also thought the [Azure inbound port rules](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/nsg-quickstart-portal) to be suspect, because `nc -zv` kept returning `Connection refused`, but then realized that this only means that **the ports are open but no one is listening on the other side**. (If the ports would be blocking, than `nc` would just hang.)
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2021, 2:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/10 "2021-08-16T14:08:29Z")
> [@toraritte](#):
>
> Everything installs beautifully Discourse-wise, all seems fine, but ports 80 and 443 are publicly unreachable.
`discourse-setup` should fail if you don’t have ports 80 and 443 open to inbound traffic.
> [@toraritte](#):
>
> The first time I realized I had no swap, and even though the `discourse-setup` script sets it up if missing, I exited to shell to check stuff. Then some of install prompts were different than in [the basic guide](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/main/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md), so exited one more time.
Ah. That’s true. Some of the questions about email configuration were changed a while back and not changed in the guide. I think most people read the prompts and not the install document, so no one else has complained.
> [@toraritte](#):
>
> was under the impression that I would have to set up HTTPS manually.
Why did you think that? The install process has automatically set up let’s encrypt for years.
I can’t tell if you’re saying that your site is working or not working.
If it’s not working, it’s a good bet that you ran discourse-setup a bunch of times and used up your rate limit at [letsencrypt.org](http://letsencrypt.org).
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2021, 4:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/11 "2021-08-17T16:25:42Z")
Here’s a PR to make install cloud be the same as discourse-setup: [update INSTALL-cloud for discourse-setup by pfaffman · Pull Request #14065 · discourse/discourse · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/14065)
---
### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2024, 12:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-installation-on-azure-not-reachable/36880/12 "2024-06-08T12:36:46Z")
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