Nginx isn't allowing my Flask App to be the default IP

Question

I have a Virtual server running Ubuntu 22.04. Nginx is already installed. I have created two separate directories for my Flask apps. The structure for Flask app 1 is: /home/myname/creative_space/ inside that directory I have created a venv and activated it so I could install via pip Gunicorn, Flask, Flask_bootstrap. Also in this directory is app.py, a 'static' directory, a 'templates' directory and a wsgi.py file. This structure has been duplicated for the 2nd Flask app and is here: /home/myname/annsquared

The virtual server has assigned an IP of 192.168.50.192 Both sites can be accessed by doing the following: Flask app 1 is 192.168.50.192:8000 and the second Flask app 2 is 192.168.50.192:8001 Additionally I created two files in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ the files are named 'creative_space' and the other 'annsquared'

The contents for creative_space is as follows:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name 192.168.50.192;    

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000/;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        
    }
}

The contents for annsquared is as follows:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name 192.168.50.192;

    location /annsquared {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8001/annsquared;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    }


    location /static/ {
        root /home/myname/annsquared/static/;
        expires 30d;
    }
}

Both files are linked to sites-enabled.

Also I created two files in /etc/systemd/system the files are named 'creative_space.service' and the other 'annsquared.service'

The content for creative_space.service is as follows:

[Unit]
Description=Gunicorn instance for a Flask app
After=network.target

[Service]
User=myname
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/home/myname/creative_space
Environment="PATH=/home/myname/creative_space/venv/bin"
ExecStart=/home/myname/creative_space/venv/bin/gunicorn --workers 3  --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 --error-logfile /var/log/creative_space/error.log wsgi:app

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

The content for annquared.service is as follows:

[Unit]
Description=Gunicorn instance to serve annsquared
After=network.target

[Service]
User=myname
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/home/myname/annsquared
Environment="PATH=/home/myname/annsquared/venv/bin"
ExecStart= /home/myname/annsquared/venv/bin/gunicorn --workers 3 --bind 0.0.0.0:8001 --error-logfile /var/log/annsquared/error.log wsgi:app

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Everything works fine and can be accessed at 192.168.50.192:8000 and 192.168.50.192:8001

What I'm trying to achieve is that the first Flask app (192.168.50.192:8000) can be the root reached at 192.168.50.192 and the second Flask app (192.168.50.192:8001) can be reached at 192.168.50.192/annsquared.

Apologizes for the length of this post but giving the most details upfront usually eliminates a lot of back and forth. Thanks in advance for your guidance!

I have deleted the 'default' file in sites-available and in sites-enabled but still getting the 'Welcome to Nginx' greeter at 192.168.50.192

Answer 1

I think the issue is you have 2 server blocks with the same server_name. Defining 2 locations in the same server should resolve your conflict.This link helps you about the issue more.

Answer 2

My initial questions concerned getting my Flask app 1 to default to the virtual server IP and the second part of the question was to have the 2nd Flask app to be a name, (annsquared) as part of the default IP such as 192.168.50.192/annsquared. Perhaps I wasn't able to articulate my issues clearly so others might answer but I did sort out my problems with a different approach. As I initially stated my flask app1 and flask app2 were able to be accessed by 192.168.50.197:8000 and 192.168.50.197:8001 without error, so I 'unlink' the default file in sites-available and removed it from sites-enabled. I then created and edited /etc/nginx/conf.d/new_sites.conf (you can call the file whatever you want). The basic instructions are from this video a link! I also edited my /etc/hosts file on the virtual and host machine to reflect these names, an example would be 192.168.50.192 annsquared 192.168.50.192 posters. Now I can reach my flask app sites by name. http://annsquared and the 2nd flask site http://posters Of course this is only for local development. Hope this clears things up.

I was requested to add more details. What I previously wrote and the link I supplied pretty much sums up my solution. To get one of the IPs to be the default I needed to have unique 'server_name', mine were both the same. To have a 'word name' for the url instead of IP:PORT I followed the instructions from the supplied link in my post. That's it.