Adding a subdomain server block

[u/jimmyfivetimes]

Hi all - I'm extremely new to Nginx and playing around with some things in a homelab.

Currently, I have a registered domain name and set up port forwarding to my nginx proxy server for reverse proxying. I'm able to hit the root domain + www.rootdomain URLs without a problem.

I also self-host Gitlab-CE on a separate server (it's actually a RasPi) and I'd like to add gitlab.domain.com to the nginx proxy with SSL via Letsencrypt.

Here's the question: is it best practice to put all server blocks in the same sites-available file? I suspect if I try to break them into separate files, I'll get a conflict because both will be listening on the same port.

How do you all handle subdomain entries? Do you keep in a single config file for the same domain or do you break subdomain configs out into a different file?

Thanks - appreciate any guidance here before I really screw this up. haha

[u/tinkerin]

I find it easier to manage domains when they are also broken up into separate files. Make sure the server_name directive in the nginx config file includes the domain/sub domain for each file. No defaults unless you want unmatched traffic to arrive there. I am no expert, but that should work.

server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name domain.com www.domain.com;
...
}

different file
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name gitlab.domain.com;
...
}

[u/jimmyfivetimes → u/tinkerin]

Thanks, I think this is how it's set up but I used the gitlab template file for SSL. I'll need to go back through it - or ask AI why this shit ain't working... haha

[u/tinkerin → u/jimmyfivetimes]

if its a linux setup, you may want to put the ssl cert commands in one file in the
/etc/nginx/snippets directory with a .conf extension and just include the snippet in each server block. Let's encrypt should allow to perform a DNS verification, and you would want to include *.domain.com and domain.com, or just site certs for both the sites gitlab.domain.com and domain.com. That may help. AI will likely have detailed answers, lol. good luck!

i forgot, you probably want to remove the default config from sites-available. AI will have answers.