Shiny Server on NGINX with SSL

Question

I have a Shiny Server, R 'shiny' package v7.0, NGINX and 3rd party SSL certificate set up on Ubuntu 12.04 64bit system. Everything worked fine when using http, but after I set up a SSL reverse proxy with NGINX - the server.R files stopped working - I don't see anything happening. I see only output from ui.R, no errors, but no results from server.R either. It looks like there's no communication between client a server. I tried IE8 and Google Chrome on Win 7, Google Chrome and Chromium on Ubuntu 12.04 notebook. Same issue. Interestingly though, that it works fine when using iPad.

Please help. Thanks

Shiny Server v0.3.6 (Node.js v0.10.21)

> sessionInfo()
R version 3.0.2 (2013-09-25)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] shiny_0.7.0

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] bitops_1.0-5  caTools_1.14  digest_0.6.3  httpuv_1.2.0  RJSONIO_1.0-3
[6] xtable_1.7-1

This is the log for Shiny-Server:

^[[32m[2013-11-12 03:53:43.571] [INFO] shiny-server - ^[[39mStopping listener on 0.0.0.0:3838
^[[32m[2013-11-12 03:53:43.572] [INFO] shiny-server - ^[[39mShutting down worker processes (with notification)
^[[32m[2013-11-12 03:53:44.393] [INFO] shiny-server - ^[[39mShiny Server v0.3.6 (Node.js v0.10.21)
^[[32m[2013-11-12 03:53:44.395] [INFO] shiny-server - ^[[39mUsing config file "/etc/shiny-server/shiny-server.conf"
^[[32m[2013-11-12 03:53:44.435] [INFO] shiny-server - ^[[39mStarting listener on 0.0.0.0:3838

This is nginx.conf file (showing server section only):

server {

  listen 80;
  return 301 https://$host$request_uri;

}

server {

  listen 443 default ssl;

  ssl on;
  ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/server.crt;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/server.key;

  server_name [domain name];
  index index.html;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3838;
    proxy_redirect http://localhost:3838/ $scheme://$host/;

  }

}

just for the record: are you using shiny pro or the open source version here? — Matt Bannert, Feb 13 '14 at 22:55
That was open-source version. The pro one was not released at the time of the posting yet. — , Feb 15 '14 at 00:10

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 14 '13 at 02:58

Turns out the root cause of the problem was not easy to understand as it worked fine on iPad but not on other systems. So, after I found out that there was a new software version Shine Server 0.4.0.0 out there, I have made a move for an upgrade and also I have upgraded the 'shiny' package to shiny_0.8.0.99. After everything was done based on the instructions from this resource: http://rstudio.github.io/shiny-server/latest/ - the issue has gone. Thanks.

Shiny Server on NGINX with SSL

1 Answers1