setting up a virtual host with unicorn, nginx and capistrano in rails

Question

I have been able to deploy my rials app into a vps system using nginx, unicorn and capistrano with no errors. Now, i want to deploy another rails app using the same nginx config(the two scripts are below) inside the same vps server and after running cap deploy:setup and cap deploy:cold it sets up correctly and the rails app is sent to the server. The problem i get is this. when i type service nginx restart i get the following error

nginx: [emerg] duplicate upstream "unicorn" in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/cf:1
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

my nginx script for the first app which is currently running is

upstream unicorn {
  server unix:/tmp/unicorn.cf.sock fail_timeout=0;
}

server {
  listen 80 default deferred;
  server_name cfmagazineonline.com;
  root /home/deployer/apps/cf/current/public;

  location ^~ /assets/ {
    gzip_static on;
    expires max;
    add_header Cache-Control public;
  }

  try_files $uri/index.html $uri @unicorn;
  location @unicorn {
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_redirect off;
    proxy_pass http://unicorn;
  }

  error_page 500 502 503 504 /500.html;
  client_max_body_size 4G;
  keepalive_timeout 10;
}

my nginx config for the second rails app which fails to run but instead trows an error for the first rails app and makes it to crash is

upstream unicorn {
  server unix:/tmp/unicorn.gutrees.sock fail_timeout=0;
}

server {
  listen 80 default deferred;
  server_name gutrees.com;
  root /home/deployer/apps/gutrees/current/public;

  location ^~ /assets/ {
    gzip_static on;
    expires max;
    add_header Cache-Control public;
  }

  try_files $uri/index.html $uri @unicorn;
  location @unicorn {
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_redirect off;
    proxy_pass http://unicorn;
  }

  error_page 500 502 503 504 /500.html;
  client_max_body_size 4G;
  keepalive_timeout 10;
}

any ideas how i can fix this issue and set up the virtual host correctly. Thank you

Szymon Jeż Szymon Jeż · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-20T10:13:11

Name your second apps upstream differently (upstream names need to be unique). So instead of unicorn use i.e. the name @my_shiny_app_server. Then use this name proxy_pass directive http://my_shiny_app_server. Replace the my_shiny string with the name of your app e.g. gutrees, cf.

setting up a virtual host with unicorn, nginx and capistrano in rails

1 Answers