nginx - two subdomain configuration

I'm new to Nginx and I'm trying to get subdomains working.

What I would like to do is take my domain (let's call it example.com) and add:

• sub1.example.com,
• sub2.example.com, and also have
• www.example.com available.

I know how to do this with Apache, but Nginx is being a real head scratcher.

I'm running Debian 6.

My current /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/example.com:

server {
    server_name www.example.com example.com;
    access_log /srv/www/www.example.com/logs/access.log;
    error_log /srv/www/www.example.com/logs/error.log;
    root /srv/www/www.example.com/public_html;

    location / {
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /srv/www/www.example.com/public_html$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

It is working to serve example.com and www.example.com.

I have tried to add a second server block in the same file like:

server {
        server_name www.example.com example.com;
        access_log /srv/www/www.example.com/logs/access.log;
        error_log /srv/www/www.example.com/logs/error.log;
        root /srv/www/www.example.com/public_html;
    
    	server {
            server_name sub1.example.com;
            access_log /srv/www/example.com/logs/sub1-access.log;
            error_log /srv/www/example.com/logs/sub1-error.log;
            root /srv/www/example.com/sub1;
    }
        location / {
            index  index.html index.htm;
        }
    
        location ~ \.php$ {
            include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
            fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /srv/www/www.example.com/public_html$fastcgi_script_name;
        }
}

No luck. Any ideas? I'd super appreciate any feedback.

The mistake is putting a server block inside a server block, you should close the main server block then open a new one for the sub domains

server {
    server_name example.com;
    # the rest of the config
}
server {
    server_name sub1.example.com;
    # sub1 config
}
server {
    server_name sub2.example.com;
    # sub2 config
}

You just need to add the following line in place of your server_name

server_name xyz.com  *.xyz.com;

And restart Nginx. That's it.

You'll have to create another nginx config file with a serverblock for your subdomain. Like so:

/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/subdomain.example.com

1. Add A field for each in DNS provider with sub1.example.com and sub2.example.com

2. Set the servers. Keep example.com at last

As below

server {
    server_name sub1.example.com;
    # sub1 config
}
server {
    server_name sub2.example.com;
    # sub2 config
}
server {
    server_name example.com;
    # the rest of the config
}

3. Restart Nginx sudo systemdctrl restart nginx

There is a very customizable solution, depending on your server implementation:

Two (or more) SUBdomains in a single nginx "sites" file? Good if you own a wildcard TLS certificate, thus want to maintain ONE nginx config file. All using same services BUT different ports? (Think of different app versions running concurrently, each listening locally to differents ports)

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    server_name ~^(?<sub>.+).example.com;

    # default app (the "default" ports, good for the "old" app)
    set $app 19069;
    set $app-chat 19072;
    
    # new app
    # new.example.com
    if ( $sub = "new" ) {
        set $app 18069;
        set $app-chat 18072;
    }
    # upstreaming
    location / {
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:$app;
    }

    location /longpolling {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:$app-chat;
    }

I know the performance will "suck", but then again, since the decision was to go with one server for all it's like complaining that an econobox cannot haul as much people as a bus because the little car has a "heavy" roof rack on top of it.

A regex expert could potentially improve the performance for such a custom solution, specially since it could ommit the CPU expensive "if" conditional statements.

Maybe this could help someone having a challenge with this, this got me grinding the whole day. First, if you have SSL installed, remove it (delete better still), this would help reset the previous configuration that's disrupting the subdomain configuration.

in etc/nginx/.../default file create a new server block

    server {
       listen 80; 
       server_name subdomain.domain.com;

       location /{
         proxy_pass http://localhost:$port;
       }
    }