Nginx 2 Websites under same VPS (2nd website redirects to 1st one)

Hello all,

So basically I've installed centminmod a few months ago after I've turned away from easyengine and serverpilot. I've installed 2 separate domains (both wordpress installations) on a Vultr VPS, all went well until today.

I wanted for my 2nd domain to disable cloudflare and just use the site without it, did that, but then the SSL gave me errors on the site (something that the certificate wasn't trusted I think I can't remember well).

Anyway, I backed up the site and figured that deleting everything from the server and reinstalling the 2nd domain again would be much easier. Installed it with the option 22, wp + wp supercache (I chose to not install SSL, I figured I would use the acmetool later).

The problem is that now the 2nd domain that I just reinstalled, redirects to the 1st domain. For example when typing in: www.domain2.com it redirects to domain1.com

I can't even remember how I did it in the first place when I set up everything 6 months ago using Cloudflare. The first site still uses Cloudflare DNS setup, the 2nd site (the one with the redirect problem) is using the Vultr DNS (setup via their own console panel).

---

The server hostname is like this: main.domain2.com

The virtual.conf of the server:

Code (Text):

server {
            listen 80 default_server backlog=2048 reuseport;
            server_name main.domain2.com;
            root   html;

        access_log              /var/log/nginx/localhost.access.log     combined buffer=256k flush=5m;
        error_log               /var/log/nginx/localhost.error.log      error;

# ngx_pagespeed & ngx_pagespeed handler
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeed.conf;
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeedhandler.conf;
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeedstatslog.conf;

# limit_conn limit_per_ip 16;
# ssi  on;

        location /nginx_status {
        stub_status on;
        access_log   off;
        allow 127.0.0.1;
        #allow youripaddress;
        deny all;
        }

            location / {

# block common exploits, sql injections etc
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/block.conf;

#Enables directory listings when index file not found
#autoindex  on;

#Shows file listing times as local time
#autoindex_localtime on;

# Wordpress Permalinks example
#try_files \$uri \$uri/ /index.php?q=\$uri&\$args;

            }

include /usr/local/nginx/conf/staticfiles.conf;
include /usr/local/nginx/conf/include_opcache.conf;
include /usr/local/nginx/conf/php.conf;
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/phpstatus.conf;
include /usr/local/nginx/conf/drop.conf;

The /usr/local/nginx/conf/conf.d/domain2.com.conf:

Code (Text):

# Centmin Mod Getting Started Guide
# must read http://centminmod.com/getstarted.html

# redirect from non-www to www
# uncomment, save file and restart Nginx to enable
# if unsure use return 302 before using return 301
#server {
#           listen   80;
#           server_name domain2.com;
#           return 301 $scheme://www.domain2.com$request_uri;
#      }

server {
  server_name domain2.com www.domain2.com;

# ngx_pagespeed & ngx_pagespeed handler
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeed.conf;
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeedhandler.conf;
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeedstatslog.conf;

  # limit_conn limit_per_ip 16;
  # ssi  on;

  access_log /home/nginx/domains/domain2.com/log/access.log combined buffer=256k flush=60m;
  error_log /home/nginx/domains/domain2.com/log/error.log;

  root /home/nginx/domains/domain2.com/public;

  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/wpsupercache_domain2.com.conf;

  location / {

  # Enables directory listings when index file not found
  #autoindex  on;

  # for wordpress super cache plugin
  try_files /wp-content/cache/supercache/$http_host/$cache_uri/index.html $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;

  # Wordpress Permalinks
  #try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;

  }

location ~* /(wp-login\.php) {
    limit_req zone=xwplogin burst=1 nodelay;

I mean it probably is a simple/easy fix, but I'm not that good with server admin stuff, and maybe I've overlooked some things, so any help is really appreciated.

Thanks,
Stephen

Please fill in any relevant information that applies to you:

• CentOS Version: CentOS 7 x64
• Centmin Mod Version Installed: 123.08stable
• Nginx Version Installed: 1.15.17
• When was last time updated Centmin Mod code base ? : Today
• Persistent Config:
  
  Code (Text):

  MARCH_TARGETNATIVE='n'
  LETSENCRYPT_DETECT='y'
  

 

Okay, so basically I reinstalled everything again with the new beta centminmod, and acme, and everything works now perfectly. Thread can be deleted/closed. (no idea how to do it myself...guess I don't have that option anymore after some time has passed)

Only minor issue: if I access the domain with the www. in front, I see the default nginx page instead of the wordpress site (if I use mydomain.com, I can see the wp installation just fine). What's the best way to get rid of the "www" in your opinion? I mean I can do it via htaccess I guess, but wondering if there's a better way with the conf files or something? I have a cname of www to point to domain.com but I guess it's not working.

Thanks again for the wonderful centminmod development team for creating such an awesome tool.

 

Hi Eva2000,

I never knew about nginx and htaaccess... guess I learn some new things every day, thanks for that.

Anyway here's the funny thing, after I reinstalled everything like I said on the domain2.com, I used it with option 22, letsencrypt, and chose only the https option (without http or http+https), anyway did the acme thing everything worked fine except the www to non-www was not working.

Since the domain was not on cloudflare anymore, I had to use vultr DNS tool to set up the DNS and I had set up A for the IP and CNAME of WWW to point to the non-www domain. This wasn't working for my www to non-www redirection for some reason.

After a bunch of various tries and fixes that I've read from the internet, I woke up this morning and somehow for some reason it works now... and guess what... the configuration used for it to work correctly now (from www to non-www) is exactly the original/same one that the centminmod/acme created without any of my fixes... (I reverted everything back to original last night after seeing that nothing worked).

Miraculously today when I tried the site to go to the www.domain2.com it redirected me to domain2.com as intended. Super weird as I have no idea what happened and how it worked... maybe the CNAME needed 24+ hours to propagate, and then the whole installation was working fine anyway from the beginning?

Anyway im happy I can start building the site now, thanks a lot for your help again.

 

Yeah, I've always knew that over the past 15+ years since I started with building websites etc, but it always felt much quicker than that for example 1-3 hours... this was the first time that I think it took over 24 hours to propagate, and I can't believe I haven't thought about that and just wait for it before starting to fiddle with changes and messing up the configs etc.

The reason why I took the site down from cloudflare in the first place was for SEO purposes and test how it compares to sites that are hosted on the cloudflare free plan, I have a sneaky suspicion that the cloudflare free plan affects SEO in a negative way, so I want to try it out on this domain without cloudflare... so we'll see

EDIT:
Ok, I will bother you with one more thing now (sorry)

Just done some curl -I tests... can you please let me know if these are OK results? I mean the site works normal right now from what I'm testing on the web, but 2 of the curl results are not resolving properly, should I care about these?

curl -I https://domain2.com

Code (Text):

 curl: (7) Failed connect to domain2.com:443; Connection refused 

curl -I https://www.domain2.com

Code (Text):

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Fri, 03 May 2019 13:06:23 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Connection: keep-alive
X-Redirect-By: WordPress
Location: https://domain2.com/
Server: nginx centminmod
X-Powered-By: centminmod
X-Xss-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff

curl -I http://domain2.com

Code (Text):

curl: (7) Failed connect to domain2.com:80; Connection refused

curl -I http://www.domain2.com

Code (Text):

HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Date: Fri, 03 May 2019 13:06:55 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 138
Connection: keep-alive
Location: https://domain2.com/
Server: nginx centminmod
X-Powered-By: centminmod

This is my domain2.com.ssl.conf

Code (Text):

#x# HTTPS-DEFAULT
 server {

   server_name domain2.com  www.domain2.com;
   return 302 https://domain2.com$request_uri;
   include /usr/local/nginx/conf/staticfiles.conf;
 }

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2 reuseport;
  server_name domain2.com www.domain2.com;

  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl/domain2.com/domain2.com.crt.key.conf;
  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl_include.conf;

  # cloudflare authenticated origin pull cert community.centminmod.com/threads/13847/
  #ssl_client_certificate /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl/cloudflare/domain2.com/origin.crt;
  #ssl_verify_client on;
  http2_max_field_size 16k;
  http2_max_header_size 32k;
  # mozilla recommended
  ssl_ciphers 
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;
  #add_header Alternate-Protocol  443:npn-spdy/3;

  # before enabling HSTS line below read centminmod.com/nginx_domain_dns_setup.html#hsts
  #add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains;";
  #add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN;
  add_header X-Xss-Protection "1; mode=block" always;
  add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff" always;
  #add_header Referrer-Policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin";
  #spdy_headers_comp 5;
  ssl_buffer_size 1369;
  ssl_session_tickets on;

  # enable ocsp stapling
  resolver 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 1.1.1.1 1.0.0.1 valid=10m;
  resolver_timeout 10s;
  ssl_stapling on;
  ssl_stapling_verify on;

# ngx_pagespeed & ngx_pagespeed handler
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeed.conf;
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeedhandler.conf;
#include /usr/local/nginx/conf/pagespeedstatslog.conf;

 

Since I don't have a normal: domain.com.conf file (installed it only with SSL option). I've made the changes to my ssl.conf and here's what it looks like now:

Code (Text):

#x# HTTPS-DEFAULT
server {
   server_name domain.com www.domain.com;
   return 301 https://domain.com$request_uri;
   include /usr/local/nginx/conf/staticfiles.conf;
 }

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  server_name www.domain.com;
  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl/domain.com/domain.com.crt.key.conf;
  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl_include.conf;
  return 301 https://domain.com$request_uri;
}

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  server_name domain.com;

  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl/domain.com/domain.com.crt.key.conf;
  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl_include.conf;

I think it works well now. I mean testing the domain name in incognito windows and even on my phones/tablets etc to make sure the cache isn't there, it's working correctly and it redirects from www to non-www SSL.

The only weird thing is that when I curl in my server for the following 2 options:

Code:

http://domain.com

and

Code:

https://domain.com

I get:

Code (Text):

curl: (7) Failed connect to domain.com:80; Connection refused 

and

Code (Text):

[CODEB]
curl: (7) Failed connect to domain.com:443; Connection refused 

The

Code:

http://www

and

Code:

https://www

curls are showing up ok.

I checked with KeyCDN Curl tool, and over there the above curl commands are showing up the proper redirects, meaning the connection isn't refused.

I checked the firewall for blocks on my IP or the server IP that im curling from and there's no block, so no idea about this one...

I think I will leave it as it is, since the redirects are all working when I test them out manually on my devices even though those 2 curls are failing on me when I test it via my own server (the other 2 curls work).

 

Oh damn I just edited my previous comment before you just posted haha, but yeah I'm having problem with the curls on my putty tests, but with the KeyCDN they all work fine, even the 2 problematic ones as explained above.

 

The etc/hosts file on my local PC is default (empty, just 127.0) And I didn't mess with the DNS for my domains I simply have: A and IP Address of the server, CNAME www and with the target of domain.com & that's it.

I believe after your suggestions I've managed to make my ssl.conf work properly since it redirects fine in my tests:

Code (Text):

#x# HTTPS-DEFAULT
server {
   server_name domain.com www.domain.com;
   return 301 https://domain.com$request_uri;
   include /usr/local/nginx/conf/staticfiles.conf;
 }

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  server_name www.domain.com;
  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl/domain.com/domain.com.crt.key.conf;
  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl_include.conf;
  return 301 https://domain.com$request_uri;
}

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  server_name domain.com;

  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl/domain.com/domain.com.crt.key.conf;
  include /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl_include.conf;

I followed the guide you linked above, and I don't think I need to add another server block with {listen 80; etc} right, I mean my first server{} should take care of that.

But yeah weird that it's working with keyCDN and not with my SSH... to be honest though, I don't mind it at all, since the redirects are working now, and I'm pleased with that.

 

Yeah I checked them with the KeyCND tool and all work fine, also tested them on another site just to make sure, here's the results (edited domain name ofc).



So yeah, I think there's something weird with either my Putty client or something else... that I get 2 out of 4 curl tests with a connection refused error.

But since everything works, like I said, I'm happy and I don't really care if those 2 curls fail in my SSH tests.

Thank you a lot for all the help.

 

Great idea, I just deployed a VPS on Vultr just to check this, and guess what all the curls are working from that machine (used the Virtual Console from Vultr to make sure it's different from my PC/Putty setup).

So it's probably something weird going on with my PC/Putty. But who cares

Thanks

 

Just tried with WinSCP (the only other SSH client I have installed) and still same problem... http:// and https:// both fail. I don't even know anymore... I'm beyond confused

 

Same... not working.