Deploying FastAPI Application Part 3

Remember, in the previous tutorial, we configured the supervisor and installed nginx with:

sudo apt install nginx

In this one, we are going to use nginx to serve our API. It is a reverse proxy, load balancer, and much more. However, all we need to understand for now is that it acts as a physical router at our home. The way the router is the internet request entrypoint at our home. In a similar way, nginx will sniff for all HTTP requests and let them enter the correct process.

For nginx to work, We need to create a file in /etc/nginx/sites-available

johnwick@fastapixcelery:/etc/nginx/sites-available$ sudo touch fastapi_app
[sudo] password for johnwick: 

johnwick@fastapixcelery:/etc/nginx/sites-available$ sudo nano fastapi_app

and put the below configuration to this file.

upstream gunicorn_server {
    server unix:/home/johnwick/project/infra/run/gunicorn.sock fail_timeout=0;
}


server {
    listen 80;
    server_name ip_or_domain;  #put your server ip/domain

    access_log /home/johnwick/project/logs/nginx-access.log;
    error_log /home/johnwick/project/logs/nginx-error.log;

    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://gunicorn_server;
    }

}

Once, this configration file is saved, check once for any syntax errors by executing

johnwick@fastapixcelery:/etc/nginx/sites-available$ sudo nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful


johnwick@fastapixcelery:/etc/nginx/sites-available$ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/fastapi_app /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Finally, we create a soft link and put the same configuration in sites-enabled.

One final thing, nginx process by default uses www-data. Since johnwick is the owner of the gunicorn sock file, www-data will not be able to connect nginx with gunicorn, to fix it, open the nginx.conf file and change the first line containing user www-data; to user johnwick;

johnwick@fastapixcelery:/etc/nginx/sites-available$ cd ..
johnwick@fastapixcelery:/etc/nginx$ sudo nano nginx.conf 
#change first line to user johnwick;

Now, all you need to do is to restart nginx and allow it to sniff for http and https requests via the firewall.

johnwick@fastapixcelery:~/project/logs$ sudo ufw delete allow 8000
Rule deleted
Rule deleted (v6)
johnwick@fastapixcelery:~/project/logs$ sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
Rule added
Rule added (v6)

Hurray, it was a long-running process!! If you faced issues with it, try to find the logs and understand what the core issue is. Now, we can visit our ip/domain name and see the ping pong, FINALLY!!

If you want https enables for your site read this wonderful small doc: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-nginx-with-let-s-encrypt-on-ubuntu-22-04
Oops, we haven't still configured celery, beat. See you in the next tutorial