nginx works with ip but gives 'Welcome to nginx' error with domain name

Hi there,

It looks like that you’ve managed to get it all working! Happy to see that. If you have a chance feel free to share your solution here with the community.

In general, this issue could be due to a number of reasons. Here are some debugging steps:

• Check Your Nginx Configurations: Make sure you have the correct settings in your Nginx configurations file for the Django application. This file is typically located in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory. Here is an example of what your configuration should look like:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;
    
    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:/path/to/your/gunicorn.sock;
    }

    listen [::]:443 ssl ipv6only=on; # managed by Certbot
    listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
    include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot
}

Please replace /path/to/your/gunicorn.sock with the path to your Gunicorn socket file.

• Check Your DNS Settings: Double-check your DNS settings and make sure that your domain name is properly pointing to your droplet’s IP address. There could be a delay between setting the DNS record and it taking effect due to DNS propagation.

• Check Server Block Symbolic Link: When you create a server block file in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory, you must create a symbolic link to it in the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ directory for Nginx to serve it. To create a symbolic link, you can use the ln command:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourconfig /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Replace yourconfig with the name of your Nginx configuration file.

• Check Nginx Errors: Look for errors in the Nginx error log. The log file is typically located at /var/log/nginx/error.log. You can tail the file by typing:

sudo tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log

This command will display the last few entries in the file and then display new entries as they are added.

5. Restart Nginx: After making changes, remember to restart or reload Nginx:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Here is also a nice tutorial on how to troubleshoot common Nginx problems:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-troubleshoot-common-nginx-errors

Best,

Bobby