Nginx + Apache mod_wsgi, troubles understanding how to configure servers

Question

I've been trying for too long to set up a development environment on my Ubuntu 12.04. My intention is to set up everything as I'd have to do later in a production environment, so I followed this tutorial on how to set up Nginx as a reverse proxy with Apache 2.

I've been searching and my question is quite similar to this one, but no answer was given there and I cannot comment on it to add some of my research.

Let's get into the files:

Apache and wsgi

First, I installed mod_wsgi from apt-get and then created a mysite file in /etc/apache2/sites-available:

<VirtualHost *:8080> ServerAdmin [email protected] ServerName mysite.dev ErrorLog /path/to/developmentfolder/mysite/logs/error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel debug CustomLog /path/to/developmentfolder/mysite/logs/access.log combined WSGIDaemonProcess mysite WSGIProcessGroup mysite WSGIScriptAlias / /path/to/developmentfolder/mysite/apache/django.wsgi <Directory /path/to/developmentfolder/mysite/apache> Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> </VirtualHost> 

Note that I didn't change httpd.conf at all for this set up (I don't know if this is a mistake).

Then I modified ports.conf:

#NameVirtualHost *:80 #Listen 80 #Modificaciones para usar nginx Listen 8080 NameVirtualHost *:8080 

Next, I created

import os, sys apache_configuration = os.path.dirname(__file__) project = os.path.dirname(apache_configuration) workspace = os.path.dirname(project) sys.path.append(workspace) sys.path.append('/path/to/developmentfolder/mysite') os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'mysite.settings' import django.core.handlers.wsgi application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler() 

Then run:

# a2ensite mysite #/etc/init.d/apache2 restart 

And I was done with the Apache configuration.

At this point, after adding an entry to my hosts file, I can go to mysite.dev:8080 and see the "It works" message from Django.

Nginx

I insalled Nginx 1.6.

Created an user to run the nginx server:

 # adduser –system –no-create-home –disabled-login –disabled-password –group nginx 

Then created a script for nginx to start automatically, I actually downladed it from http://library.linode.com/assets/658-init-deb.sh, placed it at /etc/init.d/, renamed it to nginx and then made some changes:

#! /bin/sh ### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: nginx # Required-Start: $all # Required-Stop: $all # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5 # Default-Stop: 0 1 6 # Short-Description: starts the nginx web server # Description: starts nginx using start-stop-daemon ### END INIT INFO PATH=/opt/nginx/sbin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin # Changed the path of the DAEMON as the one in the original script didn't match mine DAEMON=/usr/sbin/nginx #Everything from here is exactly as it was NAME=nginx DESC=nginx test -x $DAEMON || exit 0 # Include nginx defaults if available if [ -f /etc/default/nginx ] ; then . /etc/default/nginx fi set -e case "$1" in start) echo -n "Starting $DESC: " start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile /opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid \ --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS echo "$NAME." ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping $DESC: " start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile /opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid \ --exec $DAEMON echo "$NAME." ;; restart|force-reload) echo -n "Restarting $DESC: " start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile \ /opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON sleep 1 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile \ /opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS echo "$NAME." ;; reload) echo -n "Reloading $DESC configuration: " start-stop-daemon --stop --signal HUP --quiet --pidfile /opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid \ --exec $DAEMON echo "$NAME." ;; *) N=/etc/init.d/$NAME echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2 exit 1 ;; esac exit 0 

Next, created the folders /usr/local/nginx/conf/sites-aviable/ and /usr/local/nginx/conf/sites-enabled/ and edited /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf to this (after some modifications of the original from the tutorial):

user nginx; worker_processes 1; error_log logs/error.log; pid logs/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { #modificado el include con una ruta donde realmente se encuentra el archivo include /etc/nginx/mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; sendfile on; tcp_nopush on; keepalive_timeout 65; gzip on; include /usr/local/nginx/conf/sites-enabled/*; } 

Then, created /usr/local/nginx/conf/sites-aviable/mysite . As my Apache seems to be working fine, and after reading some Nginx recomendations, I have the feeling that the problem is in this file, but I'm new with servers and can't figure out why:

server { listen 80; server_name mysite.dev; access_log /path/to/developmentfolder/mysite/logs/nginx_access.log; error_log /path/to/developmentfolder/mysite/logs/nginx_error.log; location / { proxy_pass http://mysite.dev:8080; include /usr/local/nginx/conf/proxy.conf; } location ~ /(js/|css/|imagenes/|media).* { root /path/to/developmentfolder/mysite/mysite/static; } error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html; location = /50x.html { root html; } } 

This is the proxy.conf file included above:

proxy_redirect off; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_connect_timeout 90; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; proxy_buffers 4 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; 

Then created a symbolic link in sites-enabled to the configuration file in sites-available: # ln -s /usr/local/nginx/conf/sites-aviable/ceia /usr/local/nginx/conf/sites-enabled/

Restarted nginx:

# /etc/init.d/nginx restart 

And when I access mysite.dev I only get the "Welcome to Nginx" page, but, if I understood it right, it should be the "It worked" (welcome to django) page again.

I also noticed that I cannot find the nginx error logs, not in my development folder (located in my home folder) or in /usr/local/nginx/conf

How can I make nginx to redirect properly to apache?

Is this a permissions issue related to the nginx user I created?

Thanks a lot, sorry for the huge post.

Answer 1

Eureka, I made it work.

The main issue was with the tutorial info, it was significantly out of date.

I installed nginx 1.6, which creates a folder structure similar to Apache, with sites-available and sites-enabled. There is no need (and no use if you don't know how to configure it) on the steps I made creating those folders in /usr/local/nginx...

The default conf file is also located in the installation directory, /etc/nginx/nginx.conf . I didn't have to add any lines to this file.

This is the conf file for mysite, located at /etc/nginx/sites-available (and also linked from sites-enabled)

server { listen 80; server_name mysite.dev; location / { proxy_pass http://mysite.dev:8080/; #The following lines were at proxy.conf, but I copied them here trying to avoid any # problems managing permissions or files. The include directive for proxy.conf is commented. proxy_redirect off; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_connect_timeout 90; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; proxy_buffers 4 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; # This might work, but bypassed it to test a simpler solution # include /usr/local/nginx/conf/proxy.conf; } location ^~ /static/{ alias /var/www/mysite/static/; access_log off; } # I'm not completely sure about the following, but I don't have any troubles with it yet and # as far as I know, it might be right. error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html; location = /50x.html { root html; } } 

The rest of the files are as I listed in the question.

Then, DON'T FORGET TO DELETE YOUR BROWSER CACHE after modifications or you can go crazy.

Thank you all for your help. I hope this answer helps people facing the same problem in the future.

Answer 2

Off the bat, you've two closing tags in the Virtual Host definition for Apache. I'll assume you've left the default server document root for Apache unchanged, even though its not listed.

For your NGINX configuration, I noticed you've not listed proxy_redirect. Try including this in your NGINX Server config and seeing if manually specifying the location header helps.

Also, here is a great tutorial I referenced when setting up my own dev environment. (using NGINX for static files and Apapche for dynamic). Perhaps it will give you additional insight to getting up and running correctly.