Peter David Carter's questions

I'm configuring nginx as a reverse proxy. I have the following in my nginx.conf:

user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;

events {
    worker_connections 768;
}

http {

    sendfile on;
    tcp_nopush on;
    tcp_nodelay on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;

    server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;

    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

    gzip off;
    gzip_disable "msie6";

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}


mail {

    server {
        listen     localhost:110;
        protocol   pop3;
        proxy      on;
    }

    server {
        listen     localhost:143;
        protocol   imap;
        proxy      on;
    }
}

And this in sites-available:

<^>upstream phoenix {
        server 127.0.0.1:4000;
}<^>

server {
        listen      80;
        server_name mywebsite.com www.mywebsite.com;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    listen [::]:443 ssl;

        server_name mywebsite.com wwww.mywebsite.com;

        add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000";

        ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/mywebsite.com/fullchain.pem;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/mywebsite.com/privkey.pem;

        ssl_stapling on;
        ssl_stapling_verify on;

        access_log /var/log/nginx/sub.log combined;

    root /var/www/mywebsite.com/html;

    index index.html index.php index.htm;

    location / {
                allow all;

                proxy_http_version 1.1;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
                proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
                proxy_set_header X-Cluster-Client-Ip $remote_addr;

                proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
                proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";

                proxy_pass http://phoenix;
    }

        location ~ /\.ht {
                deny all;
        }

        location ~ /.well-known {
                allow all;
        }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
    }
}

When I run nginx -t I get the error:

nginx: [emerg] unknown directive "<^>upstream" in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mywebsite.com:19
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

However, sites-enabled contents are included in the http block, as you can see above. What's going wrong here?

I have attempted to open port 443 on a server I'm working on (Ubuntu 16.04):

/sbin/iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 443 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

The port doesn't appear to be open:

nmap cubicverse.com

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         
ACCEPT     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             tcp dpt:https state NEW,ESTABLISHED
ACCEPT     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             tcp dpt:433 state NEW,ESTABLISHED
ACCEPT     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             state NEW tcp dpt:https

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination 

I have also opened the port with ufw.

What alternative steps may be needed to open the port?

To be clearer, I am attempting to add an SSL cert for this server, and the 'SSL checker' keeps telling me I have a closed port and hence it can't validate the CSR.

I am attempting to view a log with a program called 'logger'. When I run node logger I get the following error:

<Buffer 66 72 75 69 74 69 73 68 79 0a>

The 'logger' program file looks as follows:

var fs = require('fs');

var file = fs.createReadStream("veg.log");

file.on('readable', function() {
    var stream = null;
    while(null !== (stream = file.read()))  {
      stream.toString();
      console.log(stream);
      }
});

Does anyone have an idea what's causing the error? The log file is just plain text. Why is this causing an error with my buffer and how do I find out which buffer it is and what's causing it to be incorrectly accessed?

Sorry if this is a total newbie question, but I'm doing frontend design work for a radical political organisation and ALL my installations of Linux, be they openSUSE, Ubuntu or Fedora keep getting bricked or just generally messed around with in the most annoying of ways.

I know there's probably a bazillion aspects to this question and I'm not a systems admin at all, but I just want to be able to help fix their frontend design work without dealing with hackers ALL the time.

So, are there any really basic precautions I should take to stop this sort of thing happening ALL the time? It's not like I'm even running an open server, and, apart from me not being able to connect to anyone via Skype without them being assaulted by static, Windows seems to manage to at least stay alive more than 10 minutes without going completely berserk and/or getting fubared.

So, my question is this: what are the MOST BASIC provisions to take when setting up a client to serve as a localhost server to stop people accessing it all over the place to stop me doing the political work I'm doing.

And if anyone talks about SSH keys or closing ports I will probably just keep screaming until everyone stops and goes away.

Thank you all very much!