# NGINX is Broken?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Tags:** unsupported-install
**Created:** [November 27, 2019, 2:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493 "2019-11-27T02:25:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 2:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/1 "2019-11-27T02:25:40Z")

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Alright so I’m on my Ubuntu 18.04 LTS VPS, and I’m building the app and everything. After it’s done, I go to the website, and it just says Welcome to NGINX!

 ![nb](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/2/6/26fb7d314f3da4e05b3542cb3d92a43b03292a6d.png)  
I have no idea what made it do this, the app.yml looks normal, so I don’t know.

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### Author: ![featheredtoast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/featheredtoast/32/116994_2.png) [@featheredtoast](https://meta.discourse.org/u/featheredtoast)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 3:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/2 "2019-11-27T03:15:01Z")

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Maybe you have another nginx webserver running on that server. I’ve never witnessed Discourse give up and display the generic nginx welcome page.

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### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 4:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/3 "2019-11-27T04:13:19Z")

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That’s what I thought, so I looked for a process name that matched NGINX, I got nothing. Then I listed all the processes, but there was nothing?

EDIT: I’ve never installed NGINX on that server

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### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 4:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/4 "2019-11-27T04:15:55Z")

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Although I remembered how I got to this. I set an email for Lets Encrypt, it was `ls@theforumssite.xyz`, then I un-commented that and the two templates. Then I rebuilt the app, then it didn’t work. I reset everything (deleted the discourse folder) and set it up again, and it does the same thing.

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### Author: ![Stephen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephen/32/95011_2.png) [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 4:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/5 "2019-11-27T04:52:16Z")

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Are you using cloudflare?

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### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 4:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/6 "2019-11-27T04:54:12Z")

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Yes, I’m using cloudflare, DNS only, but it gives the same going to the IP address directly.

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### Author: ![Stephen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephen/32/95011_2.png) [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 5:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/7 "2019-11-27T05:01:53Z")

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Where are you installing this?

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 5:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/8 "2019-11-27T05:04:32Z")

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On an Ubuntu 18.04 VPS in Google Cloud.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 5:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/9 "2019-11-27T05:12:57Z")

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Okay well now it’s working all of the sudden? But still no HTTPS (Connection Refused)

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### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/10 "2019-11-27T18:03:43Z")

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Okay, now I have no idea what’s going on. I create two ssl files (ssl.crt ssl.key) and put them in `/var/discourse/shared/standalone/ssl`, I enable the ssl template (Not Let’s Encrypt), and I add [this](https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker/blob/master/templates/web.ssl.template.yml) config in the run section. When I go to HTTPS, it refuses the connection, but now when I go to HTTP, it just sends no data?

I’m on a Google Cloud VPS with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS installed.

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### Author: ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/11 "2019-11-27T18:33:41Z")

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It would be better if you’d kept this in your [other topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/7).

Rather than fuss with your own certs, the easy solution is to re-run `./discourse-setup` and give it an email address for let’s encrypt and it’ll do all the work for you. If you want to do it the hard way, you’ll need to search here for the topic that describes how to do that and follow those instructions.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Stephen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephen/32/95011_2.png) [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/12 "2019-11-27T18:36:34Z")

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There’s no good reason to create your own let’s encrypt certificates, that’s the point of discourse-setup asking for the email, you’re adding unnecessary complication here.

Have you verified whether your server is accessible over :443? DigitalOcean is recommended because none of these obstacles exist there. We can’t help you if you insist on ad-libbing parts of the install process and can’t offer much assistance at all with Google Cloud.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/13 "2019-11-27T18:42:41Z")

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> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> It would be better if you’d kept this in your [other topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/7).

That’s what I thought of doing, but I also thought that people would just see the tag unsupported-install and just click away

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Stephen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephen/32/95011_2.png) [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/14 "2019-11-27T18:43:24Z")

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As you aren’t following the [standard install](https://meta.discourse.org/t/142537?silent=true) what you’re doing isn’t entirely supported, so the tag would be accurate.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/15 "2019-11-27T18:43:41Z")

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> [@Stephen](#):
>
> There’s no good reason to create your own let’s encrypt certificates, that’s the point of discourse-setup asking for the email, you’re adding unnecessary complication here.

The exact same happens when I do the email process with Lets Encrypt

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/16 "2019-11-27T18:44:37Z")

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> [@Stephen](#):
>
> As you aren’t following the [standard install](https://meta.discourse.org/t/142537?silent=true) what you’re doing isn’t entirely supported, so the tag would be accurate.

Alright, that’s my mistake, I’ll keep this in mind for when I post topics.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Stephen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephen/32/95011_2.png) [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/17 "2019-11-27T18:44:44Z")

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Right, and because you’re using Google Cloud you have the added complexity there to deal with. That’s a choice on your part, it’s not something we can assist you with.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/18 "2019-11-27T18:45:24Z")

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Alright, I understand, thanks for the help!

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/19 "2019-11-27T18:49:07Z")

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`discourse-doctor` will try to tell if port 443 is open via your domain name. My guess is that it’s being blocked by a firewall/security policy. I think that I remember that you have to open it on Gcloud.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BobHill74](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bobhill74/32/177388_2.png) [@BobHill74](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BobHill74)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2019, 7:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493/20 "2019-11-27T19:06:05Z")

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I thought it already was? I’ll check again and reply if it is open or not.  
I also added an email, and rebuilding right now to see if that makes a difference.

[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nginx-is-broken/134493.md?page=2)
