Nginx with 1 domain, 2 apps. Ror + nodejs - ruby-on-rails

Question

Hey.
After a few hours of research I couldn't find any easy how-to solutions for my problem.
I have written earlier a RoR app that's deployed on my server and running just fine. Now I'm trying to deploy also a Nodejs app to run alongside my RoR app. The two apps don't have anything to do with each other - they are to be used separately.
I only have one domain to use and I'm trying to use Nginx.
The RoR app is running on Unicorn + Nginx already.
My first question is what is the correct way to deploy two separate apps alongside on the same server?
Should they listen to different ports? Other to port :80 and other to :81 for example?
Or should I alternatively use sub folders? Going for exampleDomain/app1 and exampleDomain/app2?
I also read about an option of creating sub domains, but does this work when running my apps in production?
My RoR app is deployed following these instructions:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-deploy-a-rails-app-with-unicorn-and-nginx-on-ubuntu-14-04
(as a note I'm using Digital Ocean's virtual server)
Currently my Nginx file looks the following:
upstream app {
# Path to Unicorn SOCK file, as defined previously
server unix:/home/deploy/appname/shared/sockets/unicorn.sock fail_timeout=0;
}
server {
listen 80;
server_name localhost;
root /home/deploy/appname/public;
try_files $uri/index.html $uri #app;
location #app {
proxy_pass http://app;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_redirect off;
}
error_page 500 502 503 504 /500.html;
client_max_body_size 4G;
keepalive_timeout 10;
}
It's a direct copy from the above RoR tutorial. For some reason if I switch the file name it stops working? Even that I couldn't find the file name being defined anywhere.
The file is under /etc/nginx/sites-available/ and named "default".
I tried to follow this tutorial for deploying the Nodejs app:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-node-js-application-for-production-on-ubuntu-14-04
I get my app running with pm2. And I tried writing the following code in another file in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ and also including the code in the existing default file alongside with the code for RoR but neither of them worked.
server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com;
location / {
proxy_pass http://APP_PRIVATE_IP_ADDRESS:8080;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
}
}
Nginx logs are not showing anything useful either. I ran
sudo tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log
a couple of times but the logs were empty.
I would be really thankful if someone could give me some guidance which way to go from here.

Answer 1

First question "How to put two apps on same server?".
All those approaches you mentioned will work, but probably the cleanest way for you and potential users would be to use a subdomain. To do this,
1) Decide on your subdomain (ie. nodejs.example.com and ror.example.com) and point both of those to your server.
2) In your 2 ngnix files for each name set the server name to the respective subdomain:
server {
listen 80;
server_name ror.example.com;
# Rest of conf below (pointing to ROR project)
}
And:
server {
listen 80;
server_name nodejs.example.com
# Rest of conf below (pointing to nodejs project)
}
Second Question: "Where do I place these files?"
To see where these files are actually used by nginx, I'd first look at the main nginx.conf file usually in the location: '/etc/nginx/nginx.conf'. There should be 2 lines near the end that tell you where nginx is looking for conf files:
http {
# A bunch of default nginx settings
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}
If this is what is in your nginx.conf file, then nginx never will look in the sites-available folder. Where nginx is actually looking is in the two folders: /etc/nginx/conf.d/ and /etc/nginx/sites-enabled What I would suggest is do 3 things:
1) cd into /etc/nginx/sites-enabled folder. Remove the 'default' file.
2) create 2 files, nodejs and ror, and put the resptive nginx configurations into both of those files within the folder: /etc/nginx/sites-enabled.
3) Run:
sudo service nginx reload
sudo service nginx restart
If reload fails, run the following to help debug the configuration:
sudo nginx -t
This will show the file and line number of the issue.
Hope this helps. Comment if you have trouble with any of this.