Nginx not binding to Manager Server port over SSL

4

In case someone is interested in installing manager to run over SSL only. Here is how it is done on a Ubuntu server

  1. Install nginx:
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install nginx
  1. Make sure nginx starts automatically on reboot:
  sudo update-rc.d nginx defaults

This should be enbaled by default so you might get a message like:

  System start/stop links for /etc/init.d/nginx already exist.
  1. Create a folder to hold your ssl certificate and create your self-signed ssl certificate:
sudo mkdir /etc/nginx/ssl
sudo openssl genrsa -out server.key 2048
sudo openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
sudo openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
  1. Configure your redirect and bind manager’s port to use ssl by creating a proxy_pass redirect:
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/manager

Then paste the following content into the file before quitting and saving:

# access manager app on LAN and WAN over ssl on port 555
server {
   listen 555 ssl;
   server_name yourserver.com;
   ssl on;
   ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/server.crt;
   ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/server.key;

   ssl_session_timeout 5m;

   ssl_protocols SSLv3 TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
   ssl_ciphers "HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5 or HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5:!3DES";
   ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

   # replace 12000 with your manager installation port here
   location / {
     proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:12000;
   }
  # This takes care of redirecting the bad request made over http back to https on port 555
   error_page 400 497 https://$host:555$request_uri;
}
  1. restart nginx:
sudo service nginx restart

If things go wrong for some reason and the service won't restart. Look at the error logs for nginx:

cat /var/log/nginx/error.log
  1. Visit your manager installation via your browser and enjoy the secure connection!
https://yourserver.com:555

and check that

http://yourserver.com:555

redirects you to:

https://yourserver.com:555
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