Nginx upstream failure configuration file - nginx

Question

I'm trying to start up my node service on my nginx webserver but I keep getting this error when I try to do nginx -t
nginx: [emerg] "upstream" directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:3
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed
My current nginx.conf is like this:
upstream backend {
server 127.0.0.1:5555;
}
map $sent_http_content_type $charset {
~^text/ utf-8;
}
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name mywebsite.com;
server_tokens off;
client_max_body_size 100M; # Change this to the max file size you want to allow
charset $charset;
charset_types *;
# Uncomment if you are running behind CloudFlare.
# This requires NGINX compiled from source with:
# --with-http_realip_module
#include /path/to/real-ip-from-cf;
location / {
add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
root /path/to/your/uploads/folder;
try_files $uri #proxy;
}
location #proxy {
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
proxy_pass http://backend;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
}
}
I tried to look up some solutions but nothing seem to work for my situation.
Edit: Yes, I did edit the paths and placeholders properly.

Answer 1

tldr; The upstream directive must be embedded inside an http block.
nginx configuration files usually have events and http blocks at the top-most level, and then server, upstream, and other directives nested inside http. Something like this:
events {
worker_connections 768;
}
http {
upstream foo {
server localhost:8000;
}
server {
listen 80;
...
}
}
Sometimes, instead of nesting the server block explicitly, the configuration is spread across multiple files and the include directive is used to "merge" them all together:
http {
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}
Your config doesn't show us an enclosing http block, so you are most likely running nginx -t against a partial config. You should either a) add those enclosing blocks to your config, or b) rename this file and issue an include for it within your main nginx.conf to pull everything together.