Sub domain hiting Nginix index page and not the API - nginx

Question

I have an Amazon EC2 box, and I am trying to host my node js REST API in the box. I run the application as a background process using PM2. To expose the locally running background application to the web, I create a Nginix web server. Now when I try to access the public DNS of the EC2 box, I can access the api like ec2-bla-bla.amazonaws.com/api and I can have it consumed by the front end applications. All the communication is going on HTTP for right now.
But I cant let people use this DNS to consume my API as the DNS is owned by Amazon and not by us. So we created a separate sub domain called api.our-company.com and point it to EC2 public IP. But when I go to api.our-company.com, its displays the nginix index page, so that means its hitting the EC2 box. But when I call api.our-company.com/api, it gives me a nginix 404 error and wont let me access my api.
I need to be able to use api.our-company.com/api to consume my API.
I tried changing the root in my applications config file in sites-enabled. Tried removing index.html completely from the file. but it still displays the index page. I am following this digital ocean article: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-node-js-application-for-production-on-ubuntu-14-04
Here is my project config file in sites-enabled.
upstream app_nodejs {
server 127.0.0.1:8080;
keepalive 8;
}
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
listen 443 default ssl;
root /var/www/express-api/public/api;
index index.html index.html;
# Make site accessible from http://localhost/
server_name api.our-company.com;
location / {
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwar$
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080/;
proxy_redirect off;
}
}
Here is the nginx.conf file
user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
events {
worker_connections 768;
# multi_accept on;
}
http {
##
# Basic Settings
##
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
types_hash_max_size 2048;
# server_tokens off;
# server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
# server_name_in_redirect off;
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
##
# SSL Settings
##
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
##
# Logging Settings
##
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
##
# Gzip Settings
##
gzip on;
gzip_disable "msie6";
# gzip_vary on;
# gzip_proxied any;
# gzip_comp_level 6;
# gzip_buffers 16 8k;
# gzip_http_version 1.1;
# gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
##
# Virtual Host Configs
##
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}
#mail {
# # See sample authentication script at:
# # http://wiki.nginx.org/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript
#
# # auth_http localhost/auth.php;
# # pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";
# # imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";
#
# server {
# listen localhost:110;
# protocol pop3;
# proxy on;
# }
#
# server {
# listen localhost:143;
# protocol imap;
# proxy on;
# }
#}
I don't have much experience on hosting web servers. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I resolved my problem. It was not a configuration setting. It was just that the C Name of the sub-domain (api.our-company.com) was not pointing to Amazon's EC2 public DNS. We changed the C Name and now I can access my api from api.our-company.com/api .

Answer 2

As you are using upstream, try passing
proxy_pass app_nodejs;
and
server {
listen 80 default_server;
Use below references, as you are newbie to NGINX webserver
Reference:
https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/examples/full/
https://nginxconfig.io/