Editing Troubleshooting Elastic Beanstalk Deployment (section)

=== Cannot create files in /etc/nginx/conf.d with .ebextensions ===

According to this Stackoverflow thread, [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24812375/websockets-on-elastic-beanstalk-with-docker WebSockets on Elastic Beanstalk with Docker], it seems that when EBS creates an application it basically clears out the nginx configuration after the .ebextensions commands are run. So any custom ngnix configuration done through .ebextensions would be overwritten. 

I have confirmed this insofar as I put my nginx configuration in a file and uploaded it successfully to the ec2-user home directory. I put in another command to move that file to the nginx configuration directory, and after the application was successfully deployed, the custom nginx configuration file was gone. 

There were some solutions offered on the Stackoverflow thread above. They involved moving Python scripts to an EBS “hooks” directory which would be executed after the application is deployed. There is no “hooks” directory in that location on my EBS server. 
For the time being, I am manually creating the nginx config file on the command line on the server after the application is deployed. This will allow the server to use the Let’s Encrypt certificates to serve https requests, and should stay in place through LE certificate renewals until the next application deployment.

The AWS documentation assumes that you generate the certificates manually and insert the contents of the certificate in the `.ebextensions` config file. The alternative example above places the command to generate the certificates in the `.ebextensions` config file. There is a flag that is incompatible with production environments: `--staging`. This will cause the Let's Encrypt staging server to issue the certificates. The server address will also get stored in a local config file, so subsequent attempts to reissue the certificates without the `--staging` flag will still invoke that staging server. <ref>[https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/cn-fake-le-intermediate-x1/13437/4 CN=Fake LE Intermediate X1] - Let's Encrypt forums</ref>