Problem getting NodeBB to work on a subfolder rather than a subdomain

Jop V.

NodeBB worked fine on a subdomain. However, I want to use HTTPS instead of HTTP, and I don't want to buy 2 certificates (or a wildcard certificate), so I'm trying to move it from http://forum.mydomain.com towards https://www.mydomain.com/forum in order to avoid getting an "incorrect common name" browser security warning. But I can't get it to work.

When I try to visit it, I get nginx's standard message

An error occurred. Sorry, the page you are looking for is currently unavailable. Please try again later. If you are the system administrator of this resource then you should check the error log for details. Faithfully yours, nginx.

The error log (/var/log/nginx/error.log) says:

2016/10/31 21:59:26 [error] 159#159: *2 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: MyIPAddressHere, server: www.mydomain.com, request: "GET /forum HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://127.0.0.1:4567/", host: "www.mydomain.com"

This is my nginx config:

### redirects http requests to https
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name www.mydomain.com;

    return 302 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

### the https server
server {
    listen 443 ssl;

    server_name www.mydomain.com;
    root   /home/myusername/www/mydomain;
    location / {
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }

    ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/mydomain_com/ssl-bundle.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/mydomain_com/mydomain.key;

    # enables all versions of TLS, but not SSLv2 or 3 which are weak and now deprecated.
    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;

    # disables all weak ciphers
    ssl_ciphers 'AES128+EECDH:AES128+EDH';

    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    location /forum {
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;

        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:4567/;
        proxy_redirect off;

        # Socket.IO Support
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    }
}

This is my config.json:

{
    "url": "https://www.mydomain.com/forum",
    "secret": "mysecret",
    "database": "redis",
    "redis": {
        "host": "127.0.0.1",
        "port": "6379",
        "password": "mypassword",
        "database": "0"
    }
}

I'm sure it's something really simple and I'm just overlooking something. Could anybody spot it for me? Thanks a lot!

PitaJ

I realize this may not change your mind, but LetsEncrypt is a thing. They provide free TLS certs.

Jop V.

@PitaJ Already got a Namecheap (Comodo) certificate for a year. I knew about Let's Encrypt but decided to just use my domain registrar.

PitaJ

@Jop-V. that doesn't prohibit you from getting a LE cert for your subdomain.

Regardless, @julian is the expert here

Jop V.

EDIT: Left my host's (weirdly chosen) username in

I looked into NodeBB's log and I saw this (upon trying to visit the forum):

1/11 10:38 [582] - error: TypeError: Cannot read property 'bootswatchSkin' of undefined
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/src/middleware/header.js:116:83
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:726:13
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:52:16
    at done (/home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:246:17)
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:44:16
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:723:17
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:167:37
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/src/meta/tags.js:110:4
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:726:13
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:52:16
    at done (/home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:246:17)
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:44:16
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:723:17
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:167:37
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/src/plugins/hooks.js:121:4

Is it the same as this?

https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/issues/5145

Again, works perfectly without a subfolder.

julian

@Jop-V. Likely, yes... probably resolved if you use master

Jop V.

I updated to v1.3.0 and now I'm getting a different error when trying to visit the forum

TypeError: Cannot read property 'loggedIn' of undefined
    at helpers.displayMenuItem (/home/myuser/nodebb/public/src/modules/helpers.js:20:44)
    at checkConditionalHelpers (/home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/templates.js/lib/templates.js:269:76)
    at parse (/home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/templates.js/lib/templates.js:424:15)
    at parseTemplate (/home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/templates.js/lib/templates.js:133:14)
    at Object.templates.parse (/home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/templates.js/lib/templates.js:119:11)
    at /home/myuser/nodebb/node_modules/templates.js/lib/templates.js:169:30
    at FSReqWrap.readFileAfterClose [as oncomplete] (fs.js:445:3)