Hosting a plausible instance with nginx

[lmrodriguezr]

Dear Plausible team,

Thank you for the amazing product! v2 has simplified a lot!

I'm currently trying to setup an instance of Plausible in a machine that is already serving web using NGINX, and I've not been able to configure it properly. The current server already uses HTTPS and it's working properly, but the plausible instance doesn't seem to see the outside world. The changes I've made are:

plausible-conf.env

@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
-BASE_URL=replace-me
-SECRET_KEY_BASE=replace-me
-TOTP_VAULT_KEY=replace-me
+BASE_URL=https://my-actual-url.com
+SECRET_KEY_BASE=MY/ACTUAL/SECRET
+TOTP_VAULT_KEY=MY/ACTUAL/SECRET

Then I followed the instructions in https://github.com/plausible/community-edition/tree/v2.1.0/reverse-proxy#nginx (except for the certbot command, because I have not installed the nginx plugin, but it's already configured to cover HTTPS for the domain name I'm using). Then I simply ran:

sudo docker compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d

Which seems to work properly (Running, Running, and Started). And port 8000 seems to be listening:

$ sudo netstat -tulpn | grep 8000
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:8000          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      2728818/docker-prox 

But when I try to access the site I cannot get to it:

$ curl https://localhost:8000
curl: (35) OpenSSL SSL_connect: SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL in connection to localhost:8000

And if I try using the actual domain name (instead of localhost) I get:

curl: (7) Failed to connect to ..... port 8000: Connection refused

It's as if it's not listening at all from that port, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Miguel.

[ruslandoga]

👋 @lmrodriguezr

What about curl http:https://localhost:8000 (http, not https)?

[ruslandoga]

You can compare your nginx configuration to the example one in plausible/community-edition repo. You can also check for any errors in docker compose logs (it might be a base_url issue).

[lmrodriguezr]

Thank you, it works now! In case somebody else finds the same issue: The configuration was correct, but there was some hang-up on cache (not sure where, tho). After restarting nginx a couple more times, and emptying the local browser cache, it all worked out.

[samjohn77]

@lmrodriguezr @ruslandoga I am facing the same issue and am not able to resolve it even after restarting Nginx multiple times. The URL wss:https://example-domain.com/live/websocket?_csrf_token=SJtbL2Agh&_mounts=0&_live_referer=undefined&vsn=2.0.0 is returning a 403 error.

[ruslandoga]

Please share your docker compose logs

[samjohn77]

@ruslandoga
I am really sorry for wasting your time. I should have checked the Docker Compose logs. I figured out the error myself—the base URL was pointing to a different subdomain that was not configured. Thank you so much for your time and support. God bless you! If my project is successful, I plan to share my revenue with good OSS projects like this one. Right now, I am just starting my project, so I am relying on OSS self-hosting.