I am running nginx in a container created with a docker-compose yaml file. Here is a sample docker-compose.yml and environment file:

https://github.com/marioja/Mailu/tree/test-mailu/test-mailu-docker-compose.

The marioja/rainloop:1.9.TEST image is created using this Dockerfile in GitHub:

https://github.com/marioja/Mailu/blob/test-mailu/webmails/rainloop/Dockerfile


The really interesting problem (I have been working on it for 3 days just so you know I am not asking for help without having tried a lot of things before) is that the configuration entries in the /etc/nginx/http.d/rainloop.conf configuration file created when the rainloop image starts from the webmails/rainloop/config/nginx-rainloop.conf in the github branch previously mentioned is not recognized by nginx when the webmail container (using the rainloop image) is started by docker-compose up -d. However, if I restart the webmail container using docker-compose restart webmail then the instructions in that rainloop.conf are then recognized by nginx. I tried to use nginx-debug with error_log set to debug but the output I get is not understandable and does not refer to any config file path or parsing.

The reason I am asking this in the nginx mailing list is because I have exhausted all of the tests that can gather information from the container side and I am wondering if there is anything that you guys can thing that could explain this. Here is the directory structure of the files in the container where nginx is running before starting as a result of the docker-compose up -d:

@@@ /var/lib/nginx
/var/lib/nginx:
total 16
drwxr-x--- 4 nginx nginx 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 html
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Feb 1 15:55 logs -> /var/log/nginx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Feb 1 15:55 modules -> /usr/lib/nginx/modules
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 1 15:55 run -> /run/nginx
drwx------ 2 nginx nginx 4096 Feb 1 15:55 tmp

/var/lib/nginx/html:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-x--- 4 nginx nginx 4096 Feb 1 15:55 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 494 Nov 17 13:20 50x.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 612 Nov 17 13:20 index.html

/var/lib/nginx/tmp:
total 8
drwx------ 2 nginx nginx 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-x--- 4 nginx nginx 4096 Feb 1 15:55 ..
@@@ /etc/nginx
/etc/nginx:
total 52
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 3 02:53 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1077 Nov 17 13:20 fastcgi.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1007 Nov 17 13:20 fastcgi_params
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 3 02:53 http.d
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5231 Nov 17 13:20 mime.types
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 modules
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3358 Feb 1 15:55 nginx.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 636 Nov 17 13:20 scgi_params
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 664 Nov 17 13:20 uwsgi_params

/etc/nginx/http.d:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 3 02:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 914 Feb 3 02:53 rainloop.conf

/etc/nginx/modules:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 ..
@@@ /var/log/nginx
/var/log/nginx:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 nginx nginx 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 ..
@@@ /run/nginx
/run/nginx:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 nginx nginx 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 3 02:53 ..
@@@ /usr/lib/nginx
/usr/lib/nginx:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 modules

/usr/lib/nginx/modules:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Feb 1 15:55 ..

This is the content of the rainloop.conf in the webmail container at runtime:

server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;

root /var/www/rainloop;

# /dev/stdout (Default), <path>, off
access_log off;

# /dev/stderr (Default), <path>, debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, alert, emerg
error_log /dev/stderr warn;

index index.php;

# set maximum body size to configured limit
client_max_body_size 58388608;

location / {
try_files $uri /index.php?$query_string;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.*)$;

fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
fastcgi_index index.php;

fastcgi_keep_conn on;
include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php7-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}

location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}

location ^~ /data {
deny all;
}
}

Is there a way to tell nginx or nginx-debug to tell us what is going on? The error that occurs after docker-compse up -d is that a 5MB attachment posted to the webmail container fails. That same 5MB attachment works after a docker-compose restart. The statement that does not appear to take effect until the docker-compose restart is the client_max_body_size 58388608. Please note that there is a client_max_body_size 1m directive in the /etc/nginx/nginx.conf during both restart (docker-compose up and docker-compose restart).

I have searched low and high for any information about this http.d directory but I could not see anything. I am using nginx version 1.20.2 installed from alpinelinux apk command.