BookWyrm + Cloudflare Tunnel (updated)
If your Cloudflare tunnel points directly at Gunicorn (web:8000), nginx is bypassed entirely. Gunicorn returns HTML for every /static/ request, and the browser blocks it due to MIME type mismatch and that's why there's no CSS.
The fix is to point the tunnel at nginx instead, and disable certbot since Cloudflare handles TLS.
How the traffic flows
Without the fix (tunnel bypasses nginx):
Cloudflare → cloudflared → web:8000 (Gunicorn) ✗
With the fix:
Cloudflare → cloudflared → nginx:80 → /static/ served directly
→ everything else → Gunicorn
1. Switch nginx to reverse proxy mode
Set NGINX_SETUP=reverse_proxy in your .env:
NGINX_SETUP=reverse_proxy
BookWyrm's nginx directory includes a reverse_proxy.conf specifically for setups where TLS is handled upstream. This makes nginx listen on port 80 only, with no SSL or certbot. (NGINX_SETUP=http does not work because there is no http.conf in the repo.)
2. Point your Cloudflare tunnel at nginx, not Gunicorn
In your cloudflared config (config.yml):
ingress:
- hostname: books.yourdomain.com
service: http://nginx:80 # not web:8000
- service: http_status:404
If you manage your tunnel through the Cloudflare dashboard, go to Zero Trust → Networks → Tunnels, edit the tunnel, and set the service URL to http://nginx:80.
3. Keep USE_HTTPS set to true
Even though the server speaks plain HTTP internally, BookWyrm still needs to know it's behind HTTPS so it generates correct https:// URLs:
USE_HTTPS=true
4. Apply the changes
You must do a full down + up, not just up -d. If Docker can't find the config file when the container first starts, it creates a directory at that path instead, and nginx falls back to its default welcome page. A full restart clears that:
docker compose down && docker compose up -d