Nodebb only accessible via IP address not domain

Flexi Hackify

Hey guys, so I finally got a fresh install of the Nodebb on my digitalocean server. Everything went alright however I was only able to use it if I use the IP address with the port of 4567. So here it's http://192.241.219.247:4567. I tried using the actual web address (something.com) but it shows an error reloading page.

Could you guys please help me?

Aizan Fahri

Short answer: I would use reverse-proxy as the solution.

The thing is, something.com is actually pointing to something.com:80, so if you want it to work without resorting to reverse-proxy solution, try to tinker a bit with the configuration file of the NodeBB so that your NodeBB uses port 80 instead of 4567. Else, install Nginx (or Apache2), and use it as reverse-proxy.

Hope this article can help you.

Edit: Here's the official documentation telling you how to do it, that reverse-proxy thingy.

Flexi Hackify

@aixnr So you're saying that during the installation I should change the port number to 80 instead of 4567 right?

julian

@Flexi-Hackify Not quite -- if you change it to 80, you'll need root access to start your NodeBB on ports lower than 1024 (generally not a good idea).

As @aixnr says, try using a reverse proxy

a_5mith

@aixnr

cd ~
sudo apt-get install nginx
cd /etc/nginx/sites-available
sudo nano *something.com*

Paste in the server block that's in the docs, replace the relevant information, normally just server name.

Then type

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/*something.com* /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

This will symlink it from sites-available, to enabled. Then run

sudo service nginx restart

Replace *something.com* with the URL you're going to use forumthatisgreat.com as an example. Also go to config.json in your nodebb folder and change use port to : false

Flexi Hackify

@a_5mith Could you please help me? I do not get it

a_5mith

This has been resolved, nginx wouldn't reload after a symlink was created. Running the command with logging switched on led to

could not build the server_names_hash, you should increase server_names_hash_bucket_size: 32

going into nginx.conf and uncommenting

    server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;

means it now works.