Unable to load-balance with nginx - nginx

Question

On my host machine I have three instances of one web-service - they run on ports 32826, 32827 and 32828. So that when I go to 127.0.0.1:32826 or 127.0.0.1:32827 or 127.0.0.1:32828, I see in browser a nice web-page.
Besides, I have nginx running on the same host. Now I want it to load-balance between these three instances. I did it like so:
worker_processes 1;
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
sendfile on;
upstream app_servers {
server 127.0.0.1:32826;
server 127.0.0.1:32827;
server 127.0.0.1:32828;
}
server {
listen 80;
root /code;
index index.php index.html;
location / {
try_files $uri/ $uri/ /index.php;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
proxy_pass http://app_servers;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
}
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
}
}
I put this configuration into '/etc/nginx/nginx.conf' and restarted nginx. When however I go to 127.0.0.1, I just see a default welcoming nginx page. I'm not sure what I did wrong and how can I fix it.

Answer 1

You are putting your reverse proxy config under wrong location block.
Try / location block.
worker_processes 1;
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
sendfile on;
upstream app_servers {
server 127.0.0.1:32826;
server 127.0.0.1:32827;
server 127.0.0.1:32828;
}
server {
listen 80;
root /code;
index index.php index.html;
location / {
proxy_pass http://app_servers;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
}
#location ~ \.php$ {
#proxy_pass http://app_servers;
#proxy_redirect off;
#proxy_set_header Host $host;
#proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
#proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
#proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
#}
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
}
}

Answer 2

I discovered this question while troubleshooting my own problem with the same symptoms, but discovered a different solution.
With the default install on CentOS using the yum repositories, nginx.conf contains
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf
which I believe was overriding my configuration in nginx.conf. After commenting (or completely removing) this include statement and restarting nginx, load balancing worked as expected.