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Nginx Management

The Nginx tab on the server page gives you visibility into the nginx process running on your server, along with controls to manage it — all without needing SSH access.

Server Nginx tab showing status, actions, and error logs

Status

The status section shows:

  • Nginx mode — how nginx is deployed on this server:
  • Host Service — nginx is installed directly on the host OS and managed via systemd
  • Dockerized — nginx runs as a Docker container
  • Cluster Load Balancer — nginx acts as the entry point for a Docker Swarm cluster
  • Running status — whether nginx is currently active
  • Config validity — whether the current nginx configuration passes a syntax check (nginx -t)

Actions

The following controls are available to server owners and admins:

Action Description
Start Start the nginx process if it is stopped
Stop Stop the nginx process
Reload Reload the nginx configuration without dropping connections (graceful reload)
Restart Stop and restart the nginx process

Reload and Saved Application Settings

Reload makes nginx read the configuration files that are already on the server. It does not write the settings that you saved on the Nginx tab of an application. To apply those settings, use Save and Apply or Save and Deploy on that tab (see Save, Save and Apply, and Save and Deploy).

After a reload, the Config validity status shows whether the files on the server pass nginx -t. If a file has an error, the reload fails and the error appears in the error log.

Tip

Always use Reload rather than Restart when applying configuration changes — it is graceful and does not interrupt active connections.

Configuration Check and Repair

On servers with Dockerized nginx and on Cluster Load Balancer nodes, the Nginx tab has a Configuration card. Owners and admins of the team can use it. It compares the nginx configuration files on the server with the configuration that Appliku generates from your apps and domains, and repairs the differences.

  1. Click Check configuration. Appliku reads the files and runs nginx -t with the new configuration. The result lists:
  2. Files to add, Files to change and Old Appliku files to remove;
  3. Special entries (a person must fix them);
  4. Domains without a certificate (no file) and Domain names that Appliku does not configure;
  5. Files that Appliku did not write. Appliku keeps these files. Select a file only if you want Repair to remove it, then check again.
  6. If the test passes, click Repair nginx. Appliku writes the files, keeps a backup of the old files (the last 5 backups are kept), tests the configuration again and reloads nginx. If the test or the reload fails, Appliku puts the old files back (Rolled back). If nginx does not run, Repair starts it. On a load balancer, Repair waits up to 1 minute for Docker Swarm to start nginx.

Repair nginx is available only after a check whose test did not fail. If you change the selection of files after the check, check again. The card shows the result of the last repair, for example Repaired, No change needed, Partly repaired, Test failed or Rolled back.

Repair does not change the files of apps that have Update Nginx Configuration on deploy turned off in their Nginx settings: Appliku keeps those files as they are.

When you delete a domain or an app, Appliku removes its nginx files automatically. If the rest of the configuration then fails nginx -t, Appliku still removes the files of the deleted domain or app, but does not reload nginx (status Test failed). Fix the failing file (the card names it), then check and repair again.

If the status is Rollback failed, the new configuration failed and Appliku could not restore the old files, or the old files failed the test or the reload too. The card shows the error and the backup directory. nginx keeps running with the configuration that it had loaded before, but the next reload or restart can fail. Do not restart nginx: check the files in /home/app/_nginx/conf.d against the backup over SSH, or contact support.

On the cluster page, the load balancer row has a Repair nginx link that opens the Nginx tab of that server.

Error Logs

The error logs section displays recent entries from the nginx error log. Use this to diagnose:

  • Configuration syntax errors after a failed reload
  • Upstream connection failures (application not responding)
  • SSL/TLS issues
  • 502/504 gateway errors

Logs are fetched directly from the server and displayed in the dashboard — no SSH required.

Nginx Deployment Modes

Appliku deploys nginx in one of three modes depending on your server and cluster configuration:

  • Host Service — the default for standalone servers. Nginx is installed on the host and managed by systemd. Configuration files are written to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/.
  • Dockerized — nginx runs as a Docker container alongside your application containers. Used in some containerized setups.
  • Cluster Load Balancer — on Docker Swarm clusters, nginx serves as the ingress load balancer, routing traffic to the appropriate service replicas.

The mode is detected automatically and shown in the status section.