"Connection refused", generally means that your server (sometimes this can be a firewall too - although firewalls tend to more often just silently drop packets) is sending a RST packet to an attempt to connect. Check with netstat and see if Nginx is bound to your public IP on :443 As for your question on SSL config -- it is valid in both the http and server context, ref. http://nginxby clementsm - Nginx Mailing List - English