Using Nginx as both a webserver and reverse proxy causing problems

Question

I'm trying to setup Nginx as both a webserver for wordpress and as a reverse proxy, to serve both pihole (Which is using lighttpd) and various other servers. However, after configuring, I'm having a weird problem. When I have my reverse-proxy.conf file inside of my sites sites-enabled folder, going to the ip address directly only shows the default Nginx welcome page. However, when I unlink reverse-proxy.conf, wordpress shows up. What am I doing wrong here?

nginx.conf

user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;

events {
    worker_connections 768;
    # multi_accept on;
}

http {

    ##
    # Basic Settings
    ##

    sendfile on;
    tcp_nopush on;
    tcp_nodelay on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;
    # server_tokens off;

    # server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
    # server_name_in_redirect off;

    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    ##
    # SSL Settings
    ##

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    ##
    # Logging Settings
    ##

    access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

    ##
    # Gzip Settings
    ##

    gzip on;

    # gzip_vary on;
    # gzip_proxied any;
    # gzip_comp_level 6;
    # gzip_buffers 16 8k;
    # gzip_http_version 1.1;
    # gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

    ##
    # Virtual Host Configs
    ##

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}


#mail {
#   # See sample authentication script at:
#   # http://wiki.nginx.org/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript
# 
#   # auth_http localhost/auth.php;
#   # pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";
#   # imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";
# 
#   server {
#       listen     localhost:110;
#       protocol   pop3;
#       proxy      on;
#   }
# 
#   server {
#       listen     localhost:143;
#       protocol   imap;
#       proxy      on;
#   }
#}

default

##
# 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.
# https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/
# https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/tutorials/config_pitfalls/
# https://wiki.debian.org/Nginx/DirectoryStructure
#
# In most cases, administrators will remove this file from sites-enabled/ and
# leave it as reference inside of sites-available where it will continue to be
# updated by the nginx packaging team.
#
# This file will automatically load configuration files provided by other
# applications, such as Drupal or Wordpress. These applications will be made
# available underneath a path with that package name, such as /drupal8.
#
# 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/wordpress;

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

    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 PHP scripts to FastCGI server
    #
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
    #
    #   # With php-fpm (or other unix sockets):
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
    #   # With php-cgi (or other tcp sockets):
    #   fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
    }

    # 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;
#   }
#}

reverse-proxy.conf

 server {
  #replace Xs below with your IP
  listen 192.168.1.29:80;
   location /pihole/ {
   allow 192.168.1.0/24;
   deny all;
   proxy_pass http://192.168.1.29:82/admin/;
   proxy_set_header Host $host;
   proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
   proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For 
   $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
   proxy_read_timeout 90;
  }
}

server_name is missing in the reverse configuration... However Raspi Pihole tells me that the question is offtopic, due its a home and enduser question. — djdomi, Feb 09 '22 at 05:17

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 09 '22 at 08:18

1

I assume you are accessing WordPress and /pihole/ using the same domain name (i.e. the IP address) http://192.168.1.29/. In which case, they both need to be in the same server block, not two server blocks as you have now.

In your existing configuration listen 192.168.1.29:80; take precedence over listen 80 default_server; for connections to port 80 addressed to 192.168.1.29.

answered Feb 09 '22 at 08:18

Richard Smith

12,834
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21
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Thanks! This solved my problem. – ProGamer1 Feb 10 '22 at 02:43

Using Nginx as both a webserver and reverse proxy causing problems

1 Answers1