Nginx without Docker connecting to docker container (clojure)

Question

I'm new to webapps and nginx in particular. My default.conf looks like this

  listen 80;

  return 301 https://$host$request_uri;

}

server {
    server_name <my-domain-name>;

        location / {
            root /usr/share/nginx/html;
            index index.html;
        }

        location /static {
            root /usr/share/nginx/html;
        }

        location /api {
            proxy_pass http://<my-container-name>:8080/api;

            # tell http-kit to keep the connection
            proxy_http_version 1.1;

        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

        proxy_set_header Host $host;
            proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
            proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        }


        listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
        ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live//fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live//privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
        include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
        ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot

}


  server {
    if ($host = <my-domain>) {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    } # managed by Certbot


    listen              80;
    server_name <my-domain>;
    return 404; # managed by Certbot


}

I have nginx running inside a digital ocean ubuntu instance. I also have a docker container running mye clojure http-kit webapp. It's listening on port 8080. It has routes such as /api/chsk /api/login /api/signup.

I run the image with this script

#!/bin/sh
docker kill my-container
docker rm my-container
docker build -t my-image ~/my-project
docker run -p 8080:8080 --name my-container -d  my-image

This used to work, but now I get the following error when running systemctl start nginx:

  Process: 16899 ExecStop=/sbin/start-stop-daemon --quiet --stop --retry QUIT/5 --pidfile /run/nginx.pid (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 16505 ExecReload=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; -s reload (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Process: 16850 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 19501 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 16853 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Mar 22 09:08:00  systemd[1]: Starting A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server...
Mar 22 09:08:00 nginx[19501]: nginx: [emerg] host not found in upstream "my-container" in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:21
Mar 22 09:08:00 nginx[19501]: nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed
Mar 22 09:08:00 systemd[1]: nginx.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Mar 22 09:08:00 systemd[1]: nginx.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 22 09:08:00 systemd[1]: Failed to start A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.

To be clear, I'm not running nginx inside docker. I'm serving static content at the same time.

Answer 1

It was able to run on the correct port using lein run. thanks to @ErwinRooijakkers . I changed my proxy_pass to localhost:8080/api and it worked! thank you. Not sure why it didn't work with the container, since it worked before...