How to setup Ruby on Rails static web pages behind Nginx reverse proxy

Question

Summary of question is what is the method to setup Nginx to serve static pages for site, and how and where is this Nginx server installed (is it supposed to be on same server where Ruby on Rails Server is installed) and will it work behind a Nginx Reverse Proxy.

Original issue was rails app was not sending css files, and not rendering site during production environment. During development environment site renders correctly.

I currently have a Nginx Reverse Proxy Server, which acts a Reverse Proxy for multiple domain websites (each website domain running on the own server with separate LAN IP address) running one the one WAN IP address.

Ruby version 2.5 Rails version 5.2.2

Just started out on Ruby on Rails and have setup a site (example.com) and it has five pages, four of the the five pages are static (welcome, help, contact news), one page is dynamic and pulls data from database.

I had to run below code and then enable public file server to true in the RailsApp/config/environments/productions.rb.

$ bundle exec rake assets:precompile

RailsApp/config/environments/productions.rb

config.public_file_server.enabled = true

Currently have WAN IP -> Nginx Reverse Proxy (Server 1) -> Ruby on Rails App Server (Server 2).

What is the recommended method to host static pages found in the Ruby on Rails App. That is, does the Nginx Reverse Proxy (Server 1) need local LAN file access to Rails App (Server 2) to access the static site pages, or does another Nginx web server get installed on Server 2, and then configure this new Nginx to serve out static pages request?

Answer 1

According to Rails guide

config.public_file_server.enabled configures Rails to serve static files from the public directory. This option defaults to true, but in the production environment it is set to false because the server software (e.g. NGINX or Apache) used to run the application should serve static files instead. If you are running or testing your app in production mode using WEBrick (it is not recommended to use WEBrick in production) set the option to true. Otherwise, you won't be able to use page caching and request for files that exist under the public directory.

and about your quesiton - should the only nginx server(reverse proxy) serve rails static files? answer: true (it's preferable option)

Maybe this example of config could help.