Rails static images not showing up - ruby-on-rails

Question

I apologize for asking what seems to be such a simple question that is asked again and again.
I built a small app using Rails 4.2.3. Everything works locally so I am trying to deploy to AWS with Elastic Beanstalk and the following setup: 64bit Amazon Linux 2016.03 v2.1.6 running Ruby 2.3 (Puma)
Before I deploy I run:
rake assets:precompile RAILS_ENV=production
I then commit those files to git and use eb deploy to push the files up the the EC2 instance.
Some things work:
When I ssh into that instance, I see all of the precompiled assets in /var/app/current/public/assets
CSS all looks correct
Coffeescripts are running properly
But, neither static images or ones that I upload via Paperclip show up as I would expect.
In production.rb I have this line:
config.serve_static_files = ENV['RAILS_SERVE_STATIC_FILES'].present?
I can confirm that key is not in my ENV variable by going into the console:
irb(main):001:0> ENV['RAILS_SERVE_STATIC_FILES']
=> nil
which leads me to believe that the serving of these files should be handled by nginx. I can confirm that nginx is running, but quite frankly I don't know how it is configured.
[ec2-user#ip-172-31-13-16 assets]$ ps waux | grep nginx
root 2800 0.0 0.4 109364 4192 ? Ss Oct08 0:00 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -c /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
nginx 2801 0.0 0.6 109820 6672 ? S Oct08 0:09 nginx: worker process
ec2-user 21321 0.0 0.2 110456 2092 pts/0 S+ 23:02 0:00 grep --color=auto nginx
I "think" I am supposed to edit my .ebextensions file to do a few things automatically when I deploy, but that's about where I got stuck. Any suggestions?
/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
# For more information on configuration, see:
# * Official English Documentation: http://nginx.org/en/docs/
# * Official Russian Documentation: http://nginx.org/ru/docs/
user nginx;
worker_processes auto;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
pid /var/run/nginx.pid;
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
'$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
'"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
types_hash_max_size 2048;
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
# Load modular configuration files from the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory.
# See http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#include
# for more information.
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
index index.html index.htm;
server {
listen 80 ;
listen [::]:80 ;
server_name localhost;
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
# Load configuration files for the default server block.
include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;
location / {
}
# redirect server error pages to the static page /40x.html
#
error_page 404 /404.html;
location = /40x.html {
}
# redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
#
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
location = /50x.html {
}
# proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80
#
#location ~ \.php$ {
# proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1;
#}
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
#
#location ~ \.php$ {
# root html;
# fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
# fastcgi_index index.php;
# fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /scripts$fastcgi_script_name;
# include fastcgi_params;
#}
# deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
# concurs with nginx's one
#
#location ~ /\.ht {
# deny all;
#}
}
# Settings for a TLS enabled server.
#
# server {
# listen 443 ssl;
# listen [::]:443 ssl;
# server_name localhost;
# root /usr/share/nginx/html;
#
# ssl_certificate "/etc/pki/nginx/server.crt";
# ssl_certificate_key "/etc/pki/nginx/private/server.key";
# # It is *strongly* recommended to generate unique DH parameters
# # Generate them with: openssl dhparam -out /etc/pki/nginx/dhparams.pem 2048
# #ssl_dhparam "/etc/pki/nginx/dhparams.pem";
# ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:1m;
# ssl_session_timeout 10m;
# ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
# ssl_ciphers HIGH:SEED:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!RSAPSK:!aDH:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA:!SRP;
# ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
#
# # Load configuration files for the default server block.
# include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;
#
# location / {
# }
#
# error_page 404 /404.html;
# location = /40x.html {
# }
#
# error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
# location = /50x.html {
# }
# }
}
/etc/nginx/conf.d/virtual.conf
#
# A virtual host using mix of IP-, name-, and port-based configuration
#
#server {
# listen 8000;
# listen somename:8080;
# server_name somename alias another.alias;
# location / {
# root html;
# index index.html index.htm;
# }
#}
/etc/nginx/conf.d/webapp_healthd.conf
upstream my_app {
server unix:///var/run/puma/my_app.sock;
}
log_format healthd '$msec"$uri"'
'$status"$request_time"$upstream_response_time"'
'$http_x_forwarded_for';
server {
listen 80;
server_name _ localhost; # need to listen to localhost for worker tier
if ($time_iso8601 ~ "^(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})T(\d{2})") {
set $year $1;
set $month $2;
set $day $3;
set $hour $4;
}
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
access_log /var/log/nginx/healthd/application.log.$year-$month-$day-$hour healthd;
location / {
proxy_pass http://my_app; # match the name of upstream directive which is defined above
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
}
location /assets {
alias /var/app/current/public/assets;
gzip_static on;
gzip on;
expires max;
add_header Cache-Control public;
}
location /public {
alias /var/app/current/public;
gzip_static on;
gzip on;
expires max;
add_header Cache-Control public;
}
}

Answer 1

Fix webapp_healthd.conf to make nginx to serve files in public folder and if cannot or they do not exist then proxy_pass to Your app:
upstream my_app {
server unix:///var/run/puma/my_app.sock;
}
server {
listen 80;
server_name _; # need to listen to localhost for worker tier
if ($time_iso8601 ~ "^(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})T(\d{2})") {
set $year $1;
set $month $2;
set $day $3;
set $hour $4;
}
access_log /var/log/nginx/healthd/application.log.$year-$month-$day-$hour healthd;
index index.html index.htm;
location #app {
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
proxy_pass http://my_app; # proxy passing to upstream
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
}
root /var/app/current/public;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ #app; # tries to serve static files if not will ask #app
}
}