Why I get ElasticBeanstalk::ExternalInvocationError?

Question

My app is built on RubyOnRails and its deployed as an elastic beanstalk app using passenger, I am trying to add headers to nginx server and restart it, here is my config file, a script from .ebextensions folder in aws elastic beanstalk:

packages: 
    yum:
        nginx: [] 

files:
    "/etc/nginx/conf.d/webapp.conf" :
        mode: "000644"
        owner: root
        group: root
        content: |
            server {

                location /assets {
                  alias /var/app/current/public/assets;
                  gzip_static on;
                  gzip on;
                  expires max;
                  add_header Cache-Control public;
                }

                location /public {
                  alias /var/app/current/public;
                  gzip_static on;
                  gzip on;
                  expires max;
                  add_header Cache-Control public;
                }

            }

# This reloads the server, which will both make the changes take affect and makes sure the config is valid when you deploy
container_commands:
  01_reload_nginx:
    command: "sudo service nginx reload"

However I got this error:

[2017-12-13T06:23:48.635Z] ERROR [17344] : Command CMD-AppDeploy failed!
[2017-12-13T06:23:48.635Z] INFO  [17344] : Command processor returning results: 
{"status":"FAILURE","api_version":"1.0","results":[{"status":"FAILURE","msg":"container_command 01_reload_nginx in .ebextensions/01_elastic_beanstalk_webapp.config failed. For more detail, check /var/log/eb-activity.log using console or EB CLI","returncode":7,"events":[]}]}

/var/log/eb-activity.log:

[2017-12-13T06:23:48.584Z] INFO  [17344] - [Application update fix-command-nginx-reload-hope@2/AppDeployStage0/EbExtensionPostBuild/Infra-EmbeddedPostBuild/postbuild_0_myapp_website/Command 01_reload_nginx] : Starting activity...
[2017-12-13T06:23:48.619Z] INFO  [17344] - [Application update fix-command-nginx-reload-hope@2/AppDeployStage0/EbExtensionPostBuild/Infra-EmbeddedPostBuild/postbuild_0_myapp_website/Command 01_reload_nginx] : Activity execution failed, because:  (ElasticBeanstalk::ExternalInvocationError)


[2017-12-13T06:23:48.619Z] INFO  [17344] - [Application update fix-command-nginx-reload-hope@2/AppDeployStage0/EbExtensionPostBuild/Infra-EmbeddedPostBuild/postbuild_0_myapp_website/Command 01_reload_nginx] : Activity failed.

although if I ssh into the instance and execute sudo service nginx reload it will be executed normally.. Any idea?

EDIT

$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 4.9.43-17.39.amzn1.x86_64 (mockbuild@gobi-build-64011) (gcc version 4.8.3 20140911 (Red Hat 4.8.3-9) (GCC) ) #1 SMP Fri Sep 15 23:39:41 UTC 2017

deploy command:

eb deploy my-app -v

headers of requested assets:

Connection: keep-alive
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Type: application/x-javascript
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2018 11:03:50 GMT
ETag: W/"12cd8ea0-20db3"
Last-Modified: Mon, 31 Dec 1979 04:08:00 GMT
Server: nginx/1.12.1
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Via: 1.1 8cc9957dff77c27e9931ab0aaf344ec9.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)
X-Amz-Cf-Id: 0NlE-FiGgzczadHYeK7HMMsDsGRmaB8Sefvo89phHWw3LSx01t5rgQ==
X-Cache: Miss from cloudfront

missing headers:

   access-control-max-age: 3000
   age: 48214

the update conf file at server

$ cat /etc/nginx/conf.d/webapp.conf
server {

    location /assets {
      alias /var/app/current/public/assets;
      gzip_static on;
      gzip on;
      expires max;
      add_header Cache-Control public;
      add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
    }

    location /public {
      alias /var/app/current/public;
      gzip_static on;
      gzip on;
      expires max;
      add_header Cache-Control public;
      add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
    }

}

EDIT

service nginx configtest result:

$ sudo service nginx configtest
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Answer 1

command: "sudo service nginx reload" is not necessary as NGINX service restarts automatically after every successful deployment. You can remove it from your config file.

You maybe experiencing a delay in the expiration of your CDN service, try flushing it's cache or testing against the EB url directly.