Chatbot Deployment Guide

This project contains a FastAPI backend and a static web client. The instructions below show how to deploy them on an Ubuntu server using nginx as a reverse proxy. The API will be available at api.domain.com and the web client at web.domain.com.

1. Server Preparation

1. Update packages and install Python dependencies for the API:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install python3 python3-venv -y
   python3 -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate
   pip install --upgrade pip
   pip install uvicorn fastapi
   pip install -e ./server

2. (Optional) Build or copy the static client files to /var/www/web:

   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/web
   sudo cp -r client/* /var/www/web/

2. Running the API

Start the FastAPI server behind nginx on port 8000:

source venv/bin/activate
uvicorn server:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --reload

Run this command in a process manager such as systemd or tmux for production use.

3. Install nginx

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx -y

Enable and start nginx:

sudo systemctl enable nginx
sudo systemctl start nginx

4. Configure nginx

Create configuration files for the API and web client.

API proxy (api.domain.com)

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

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

Web client (web.domain.com)

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

    root /var/www/web;
    index index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }
}

Save each block in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ (for example api.conf and web.conf) and enable them:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/api.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/web.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

5. GoDaddy DNS setup

If you purchased a domain from GoDaddy:

1. Log in to GoDaddy and open the DNS management page for your domain.
2. Create A records pointing to your server's public IP address:
   • Name: api → points to your server IP
   • Name: web → points to your server IP
3. Allow up to a few minutes for DNS propagation.

After DNS propagates, navigating to https://api.domain.com should reach the API and https://web.domain.com should load the web client (consider using Let's Encrypt for HTTPS).

6. Firewall (optional)

Make sure ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) are open:

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'

You're now ready to serve both the API and the web client using nginx on Ubuntu.