nginx reverse proxy not working

[snowplum]

I got this error line

ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./domainname.com’: File exists (possibly because I've created this file before, with the same content)

I did sudo service nginx reload and got this message reload: Unknown instance:

So I tried start in place of reload, this message appeared nginx stop/pre-start, process 7332

Yet my domain is not up.

http://domainname.com:4567 worked

but http://domainname.com returned an error page.

[julian]

How did you install nginx? what OS?

[snowplum]

I used sudo apt-get install nginx

nginx version is 1.8.0-1

Operating system is Ubuntu 14.04 x64

[julian]

Your config file should be in /etc/nginx/sites-available. You should call the ln -s from /etc/nginx/sites-enabled.

Use nginx -t to test configuration for syntax issues.

I cannot debug your nginx not restarting properly.

[snowplum]

@julian these are the errors i got

/etc/nginx/sites-available$ sudo nginx -t
nginx: [emerg] unknown directive "erver" in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:1
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

[hek]

Missing a "s" somewhere

[julian]

Yup, as @hek says, you've got erver when you want server. The error message tells you everything you need to know.

Did you modify /etc/nginx/sites-available/default? I don't, really, my NodeBB config is in its own file...

[snowplum]

I don't recall modifying that file.

I've purged and reinstalled nginx before so I don't think what I've done before purging would matter.

I did "sudo nano default" while in directory "/etc/nginx/sites-available/"

I can't find any "erver" without an s in that file. Am I looking at the right file?

Here's the content of that file.

##
# You should look at the following URL's in order to grasp a solid understanding
# of Nginx configuration files in order to fully unleash the power of Nginx.
# http://wiki.nginx.org/Pitfalls
# http://wiki.nginx.org/QuickStart
# http://wiki.nginx.org/Configuration
#
# Generally, you will want to move this file somewhere, and start with a clean
# file but keep this around for reference. Or just disable in sites-enabled.
#
# Please see /usr/share/doc/nginx-doc/examples/ for more detailed examples.
##

# Default server configuration
#
server {
        listen 80 default_server;
        listen [::]:80 default_server;

        # SSL configuration
        #
        # listen 443 ssl default_server;
        # listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
        #
        # Note: You should disable gzip for SSL traffic.
        # See: https://bugs.debian.org/773332
        #
        # Read up on ssl_ciphers to ensure a secure configuration.
        # See: https://bugs.debian.org/765782
        #
        # Self signed certs generated by the ssl-cert package
        # Don't use them in a production server!
        #
        # include snippets/snakeoil.conf;

        root /var/www/html;

        # Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
        index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

        server_name _;

        location / {
                # First attempt to serve request as file, then
                # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
                try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
        }

        # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
        #
        #location ~ \.php$ {
        #       include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        #
        #       # With php5-cgi alone:
        #       fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        #       # With php5-fpm:
        #       fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        #}
        # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
        # concurs with nginx's one
        #
        #location ~ /\.ht {
        #       deny all;
        #}
}

# Virtual Host configuration for example.com
#
# You can move that to a different file under sites-available/ and symlink that
# to sites-enabled/ to enable it.
#

#server {

#       listen 80;
#       listen [::]:80;
#
#       server_name example.com;
#
#       root /var/www/example.com;
#       index index.html;
#
#       location / {
#               try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
#       }
#}

[a_5mith]

Do you have another file in your sites-available folder? What about sites-enabled?

[snowplum]

@a_5mith

It turned out I was looking at the wrong default file, it's supposed to be in sites-enabled.

I filled in the missing s, and ran sudo nginx -t and got the following message

nginx: [warn] conflicting server name "domainname.com" on 0.0.0.0:80, ignored
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

my site is still not up on the domain

what is this conflict it's telling me?

======

Edit: Ok, so I've removed all files in sites-enabled and sites-available. Started over. Created a file in sites-available again. Then ln -s it to sites-enabled.

All [warn] lines disappeared. Configuration of nginx.conf was successful.

Then I tried sudo service nginx reload. Got the same message: reload: Unknown instance:

=====

Edit: I've rebooted my droplet. Reloading nginx was successful. My site is now up on the domain.

Thanks guys!