Since Webmin update, 502 Bad Gateway errors: Init file not created for recent virtual servers (Nginx PHP fcgi)

Of course, a workaround is to create by hand the missing init file, to keep the websites working until this bug is fixed. It's what I've done, and verified that everything works well with this temporary workaround.

An existing init file, created by a previous bug-free Webmin version, can be copied and customized by sudo or the root user for the new virtual servers, by searching and replacing the domain, user, and number of the socket folder.

For example, for a new virtual server "dev.example.com", this number can be seen in Webmin > Servers > Nginx Webserver > Edit Configuration Files > /etc/nginx/sites-available/dev.example.com.

If no old init file is available for copy and search/replace, the following is an example of a "/etc/init.d/php-fcgi-dev-example-com" init file (with domain "dev.example.com", user "dev", socket file "/var/php-nginx/111111111111111.sock/socket"):

#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: php-fcgi-dev-example-com
# Required-Start: $network $syslog
# Required-Stop: $network
# Default-Start: 2 3 5
# Default-Stop:
# Description: Start Nginx PHP fcgi server for dev.example.com
### END INIT INFO
 
case "$1" in
'start')
    su dev -c PHPRC\=\/srv\/www\/dev\/etc\/php5\ PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN\=4\ \/usr\/bin\/php\-loop\.pl\ \/usr\/bin\/php5\-cgi\ \-b\ \/var\/php\-nginx\/111111111111111\.sock\/socket\ \>\>\/srv\/www\/dev\/logs\/php\.log\ 2\>\&1\ \<\/dev\/null\ \&\ echo\ \$\!\ \>\/var\/php\-nginx\/111111111111111\.php\.pid
    RETVAL=$?
    ;;
'stop')
    su dev -c kill\ \`cat\ \/var\/php\-nginx\/111111111111111\.php\.pid\` ; sleep 1
    RETVAL=$?
    ;;
'restart')
    $0 stop ; $0 start
    RETVAL=$?
    ;;
*)
    echo "Usage: $0 { start | stop }"
    RETVAL=1
    ;;
esac
exit $RETVAL

(Updated using blockcode tag to prevent broken lines in code; see also the post below about /srv/www, /home, /var/www...).

To start the Nginx PHP fcgi virtual server for the new domain, now and on boot, with the recovered init file:

Webmin > System > Bootup and Shutdown > [X] php-fcgi-dev-example-com > Start Now and On Boot

About the temporary workaround, another change probably needed for the init file is \/srv\/www (that is, the FHS standard folder /srv/www for websites), which in most cases can be \/home (the Virtualmin default /home), or \/var\/www (the frequently used /var/www), etc.

Please, is there anything I can try to help fix this? As I said, I have a local dev server ready to test possible solutions.

As explained, Nginx virtual servers created after the last Webmin update (1.810) work well at first, but stop working after rebooting the server, because of lack of init file for the virtual server. Therefore, users will start noticing this only after a next server reboot.

And then, how users will repair their virtual servers? Is there a way to generate the init file for an already live virtual server, apart from laboriously by hand for each domain like in the temporary workaround? I would like to try any possible way. Thank you.

They give no output. I think I have only deb packages installed, not rpm. Using instead dpkg commands:

dpkg-query -l 'webmin'

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                       Version            Architecture       Description
+++-==========================-==================-==================-=========================================================
ii  webmin                     1.810              all                web-based administration interface for Unix systems

dpkg -l | grep 'webmin'

ii  webmin                                      1.810                                             all          web-based administration interface for Unix systems
ii  webmin-virtual-server                       5.04.gpl                                          all          Webmin module for 'Virtualmin Virtual Servers (GPL)'
ii  webmin-virtualmin-nginx                     1.8                                               all          Webmin module for 'Nginx Webserver'
ii  webmin-virtualmin-nginx-ssl                 1.4                                               all          Webmin module for 'Nginx SSL Webserver'

These packages are results for 'webmin'. For 'wbm' there are no results.

There are similar results using: Webmin > System > Software Packages > Search For Package

To reproduce this, on a Nginx test server, just create a new virtual server with Virtualmin and the latest Webmin 1.810. And verify if the init file /etc/init.d/php-fcgi-example-com is created or not for the new domain. It was not with two different servers and this version of Webmin, as explained.

This bug, as also reported by kindnation, is: php-fcgi init scripts no longer being created [#41875].

Jamie, thank you very much for the fix. So, those Nginx virtual servers created with the next Webmin version will be OK, like those created with versions previous to the current one (Webmin 1.810).

However, when users will restart their servers and will begin to see the 502 Bad Gateway errors instead of their sites (because new Nginx virtual servers are working well before the first server restart only), how to repair those Nginx virtual servers that are being created with the current Webmin version?:

• With some possible repair option in Virtualmin to recreate the init files? (This would be great).
• Or creating the files by hand like in the workaround?
• Or creating again the virtual servers with the next version?

Until the fix, another possibility is to use for now the previous Webmin version 1.801, which works great, instead of the current 1.810. For Debian, Ubuntu, etc.:

apt-get install webmin=1.801

This seems to work also for downgrades, and restarting just in case.

Thank you again.

The new Webmin 1.820 is available now. I've tested it creating a new Nginx virtual server and restarting. It works well now, the init file is being created, and this bug seems fixed. Thank you!

Kindnation, to have the new Webmin 1.820 available now, you can add the Webmin repository, following the section "Using the Webmin APT repository" (in the page Installing on Debian).

After that, you can do:

apt-get update

and

apt-cache policy webmin

to verify that the latest Webmin 1.820 has been added as available to install.