Your old nginx is still running. No wonder the changes you made to the new nginx configuration isn't being respected.

Kill the old, zombie nginx with a clean head shot:

kill -9 1945
kill -9 1947

Then restart the new nginx:

/etc/init.d/nginx restart

Consider the zombie nginx server as killed.

However, derp.doodleskull.com still shows a 404. Now it's just powered by nginx 0.7.65.

Since I've pointed the subdomain to 178.79.162.39, which is my Linode IP, so from my understanding it's not the problem here. On the other hand, it was my understanding that created this server apocalypse mess, so I'm not the one to say anything at this point.

But it would seem that's something's messed up either in my 'doodleskull' file in /etc/nginx/sites-available or I've put my site files in the wrong directory. Currently they're at /srv/doodleskull.com/public_html/.

I don't know. I took a photo of myself just a minute ago, maybe it will provide more valuable information:

Killed also the double reply.

Well, at least you ended the zombie apocalypse, so it may be possible to rebuild the world!

Some observations:
- According to your last post on page 1 of this thread, there seems to be a proper symlink from sites-available to sites-enabled. So that's not the problem.
- Typing derp.doodleskull.com into a browser produces a different result from typing 178.79.162.39 into a browser ("Welcome to nginx!") so apparently nginx knows that this subdomain should be treated differently.
- If there were problems with file permissions, the response would be 403, not 404. So permissions are not the issue here.
- If the directory existed but there was no index.html in there, nginx would return 403, not 404. So that's not the case, either.
- Which brings us back to the directory structure:

1) In a previous post, you said you had the following line in the doodleskull file:

root /where/i/believe/my/site/is/located/but/dont/really/have/a/clue; 

Is this exactly the same as /srv/doodleskull.com/public_html ? No typos, no weird characters in between, no unnecessary slash at the end?

2) One way to diagnose errors is to see if you can get the same program to produce a different error. Try pointing the line quoted above at non-existent paths like /herp/derp, or forbidden paths like /root. Restart nginx after every change. Does this cause the error message to change?

3) What does /srv/doodleskull.com/public_html actually contain? Please do an "ls -la" in that directory and post the results here.

Yup, that would be the same.



Gives still a 404.

These are the files in the /srv/doodleskull.com/public_html folder:

total 104
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root  4096 2012-02-23 14:45 .
drwxrwxrwx  4 root root  4096 2012-02-12 05:53 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 about
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 archives
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 17404 2012-02-21 10:06 atom.xml
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 bird-hate
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  1406 2012-02-21 10:06 favicon.png
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 files
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:07 fonts
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 hello
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 images
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  5549 2012-02-21 10:06 index.html
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 javascripts
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 movie-titles
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 nice
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  1607 2012-02-21 10:06 sitemap.xml
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 stylesheets
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 sucks
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 vacation-to-do
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 videos
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2012-02-21 10:06 zombie-hangover

Standing by for orders. Over.

Hmm, perhaps the minimal configuration I gave you at the beginning was too minimal? I did that because my usual template relies on features that may not be available on nginx 0.7.65. (The preferred method for handling document roots and a few other things have changed in the last couple of years.) But maybe I shouldn't have left out the following block:

location / {
    root  /srv/doodleskull.com/public_html;
    index  index.html;
}

Put it right after the "root" line, inside the server { } block. Restart nginx. Any difference?

Edit: Added missing semicolon.

location / { 
    root  /srv/doodleskull.com/public_html; 
    index  index.html; 
}

Not any difference, no.

The "Welcome to nginx!" index.html is in /var/www/nginx-default directory. How /srv/doodleskull.com/public_html and /var/www/nginx-default are connected?

Could I rsync my Octopress generated site to the /var/www/nginx-default folder or will it make the server a zombie again?

OK, last resort: back up /var/www/nginx-default first, and then move your site to /var/www/nginx-default, and temporarily delete the "doodleskull" symlink from /etc/nginx/sites-enabled. (You can leave it in /etc/nginx/sites-available.) This will probably cause nginx to serve the same material no matter which domain you use, even the bare IP address. This is OK until you need to add a second website.

Alternatively, you could try editing /etc/nginx/sites-available/default and change all references to /var/www/nginx-default to a more convenient location.

I'm seriously running out of ideas as to why nginx is not finding your website files in its current location. Maybe the zombie outbreak left some subtle damages to your ecosystem, causing oceans to turn grey or something.

Alternatively, I could just have used Apache instead of nginx in the first place. I just had this grandiose idea that nginx would be better for me than Apache.

People have written tutorials all over the web specificly for Linode + Octopress with Apache, Matt Gemmell posted even his .htaccess file for reference if I remember correctly. So should this nginx installation go even more south at some point, I can always start again with a clean Apache installation. I've got a local copy of my site at all times, so it doesn't matter where or what on top of I put it.



No need for a second site. If I'll need a second website, I'll open a separate Linode account for it.



Thanks for assisting this far. I really am thankful of all the help I've gotten in this thread.

I'll do the steps later today when I get home that you suggested on your last message and post an update on how it went.

Maybe. You know, at least you didn't have a zombie outbreak involving Apache.

But it's not your fault -- There are too many tutorials out there, including Linode's own, that talk about compiling nginx from source as if that was the natural way to install it on Ubuntu. No, apt-get (or aptitude) is the only natural way to install anything on Ubuntu, and compiling should be the last resort for packages that aren't in the repositories. Those tutorials should come with a big warning, but they don't.

As a result, somebody messes up their nginx installation and cries for help on this forum every other month, and what could have been a 5-minute quick fix turns into an unmanageable mess. This was exactly the kind of mess that standardized binary-based distros such as Ubuntu were supposed to help you avoid! You're just another casualty of the compiler-happy tutorial writers.

How to install Apache: apt-get install apache2
How to install nginx: apt-get install nginx
If you really need the latest version, use a more recent version of Ubuntu.
Anything else should be seen with the utmost suspicion.

/rant

Anyway, good luck with your skull doodling!

root      1945  0.0  0.1   4760   656 ?        Ss   Feb12   0:00 nginx: master p
nginx     1947  0.0  0.2   5088  1432 ?        S    Feb12   0:00 nginx: worker p

That looks like the old server you compiled. Kill it with:

kill 1945 1947

Then start the ubuntu packed one with:

/etc/init.d/nginx start

EDIT: Oh sorry, Didn't see this thread had already run into a second page.

Now I can't get the browser even to connect to my Linode.

178.79.162.39 = nothing when typed to browser

li300-39.members.linode.com = nothing

derp.doodleskull.com = you guessed it, nothing

I started to ass around with Linode backups after hybinet said I should backup certain directories. I should have backed the directories up manually. I however have Linode backups, which I thought I could use but the control panel or whatever said that I don't have enough space on my disk if I want to use the backups.

That's why I needed to turn my Linode off, resize the disk for retrieving something from the backups. After I did this, and visited derp.doodleskull.com, nothing came up. The browser can't connect to my Linode.

Eventually I went and rebuilt my Linode installation. Now I've got nginx installed (the proper way with apt-get) but still, nothing.

I'm aware than I suck with this server stuff more than Bieber sucks with music. That's a lot. But still, the guides for doing this stuff could be simpler. For reference, even the rough guide for building a space shipseems simpler.

It can't be like

Oh jesus, how can get my website up? Maybe in the next life.

At this moment, your server loads the "Welcome to nginx!" page no matter which domain I request. This page is stored in /var/www/nginx-default, right? (More recent versions of nginx have it in /usr/share/nginx/www, so check that out as well, though I'm pretty sure Ubuntu 10.04 uses the old location.) Try replacing the index.html file in this directory with the index.html file from your static site. Or even just edit it directly and insert some gibberish after the "Welcome to nginx!" message. Any change?

Okay I started nginx with "/etc/init.d/nginx start" and now it seems to be working, I get the 'Welcome to nginx!" message. Although, in my case it should say "Welcome to hell!"

Let see how long I can manage the keep things calm before the next 18,9 richter server earthquake comes for a visit.

See you in the next episode of "Stupid zombie n00b setting up zombie servers" on Linode forums! Every day at 7pm PST time!

You're drawing webcomics with skulls and other dead-looking characters in them. What else did you expect would happen to your server? You jinxed yourself.