Seafile 13.0.12 ignores nginx config file in /shared folder

Seafile Server
1

I run Traefik on my host and set it to proxy all of the traffic to the container’s nginx process on port 8001:

On the host:
traefik@myserver:~/traefik-config/conf.d$ cat seafile.yml

http:  
  services:    
    seafile:      
      loadBalancer:        
        servers:          
          - url: “http://seafile-server:8001”

 routers:    
   seafile:      
     tls:        
       options: modern      
     rule: Host(`seafile.mydomain.tld`)
     middlewares:        
       - default     
     service: seafile     
     entrypoints:       
       - https

In the Seafile server container:

root@seafile:/shared/nginx/conf# cat seafile.nginx.conf
# -*- mode: nginx -*-
# Auto generated at 09/07/2025 07:07:33
server {
    listen 8001;
    server_name seafile.mydomain.tld;

    client_max_body_size 10m;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000/;
        proxy_read_timeout 310s;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header Connection "";
        proxy_http_version 1.1;

        add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
        client_max_body_size 0;
        access_log      /var/log/nginx/seahub.access.log seafileformat;
        error_log       /var/log/nginx/seahub.error.log;
    }

    location /seafhttp {
        rewrite ^/seafhttp(.*)$ $1 break;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8082;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        client_max_body_size 0;
        proxy_read_timeout  36000s;

        access_log      /var/log/nginx/seafhttp.access.log seafileformat;
        error_log       /var/log/nginx/seafhttp.error.log;
    }

    location /notification/ping {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8083/ping;
        access_log      /var/log/nginx/notification.access.log seafileformat;
        error_log       /var/log/nginx/notification.error.log;
    }

    location /notification {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8083/;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        access_log      /var/log/nginx/notification.access.log seafileformat;
        error_log       /var/log/nginx/notification.error.log;
    }

    location /seafdav {
        rewrite ^/seafdav$ /seafdav/ permanent;
    }

    location /seafdav/ {
        proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:8080/seafdav/;
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
        proxy_read_timeout  1200s;
        client_max_body_size 0;

        access_log      /var/log/nginx/seafdav.access.log seafileformat;
        error_log       /var/log/nginx/seafdav.error.log;
    }

    location /:dir_browser {
        # Logo of WebDAV
        proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:8080/:dir_browser;
    }

    location /media {
        root /opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest/seahub;
    }

}

This worked fine until I updated from 13.0.11 to 13.0.12 today as I started getting 502 Bad Gateway responses. Upon investigation, nginx isn’t bound to port 8001 in the container:

root@seafile:/opt/seafile# netstat -tlnp

Active Internet connections (only servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8082            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      80/seaf-server
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8080            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      146/python3
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:8000          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      151/python3
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      16/nginx: master pr
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:8889          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      123/python3

This seems to be because /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/seafile.nginx.conf doesn’t have a symlink to /shared/nginx/conf/seafile.nginx.conf anymore as can be seen below:

root@seafile:/etc/nginx/sites-enabled# ls -lah
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4.0K Nov  7 17:12 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4.0K Nov  7 17:06 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.9K Nov  7 17:12 seafile.nginx.conf

I modified /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/seafile.nginx.conf to listen on port 8001 instead of 80 and that fixed the issue.

So I think that the symlink needs to be recreated in the Docker image.

2

I have also been surprised by having that nginx config changed during an upgrade. I think you might want to consider getting this working in another way that doesn’t involve changing that nginx config.

What I did was to change the docker config’s port settings in the seafile-server.yml file, like this:

    ports:
      - "8001:80"

That sets docker to listen on 8001 on the host, and forward it into port 80 inside the container. That way the reverse proxy talks to 8001 with the container’s nginx using the default config.

3

As written in the upgrade notice:

The Nginx bundled in seafile docker image no longer generates and reads configurations from mapped volume. The Nginx is used for servering static files in Seahub, and map the ports of different components in seafile docker image to a single 80 port.

This means you should avoid modifying the Nginx within the Seafile Docker image. Instead, treat it as a black box. The Seafile Docker container only exposes port 80, so you should adjust your reverse proxy to achieve the customization you desire.