Rstudio Server: login page not showing up after adding SSL certs to server

[rogerjbos]

I have a VM hosted by Google cloud that runs a shiny server and Rstudio server, both open source versions. It was working perfectly for many months. I finally got the GCP admins to add SSL to the server. In GCP the SSL part is done by a load balancing server, so I don't have to add the actual certs to my nginx conf.

Anyway, after the SSL change, my shiny site still works perfectly, but when I try to access Rstudio server, it doesn't pull up the login page. The address bar shows this URL: https://127.0.0.1:8787/auth-sign-in?appUri=%2F, The browser shows This site can’t be reached. **127.0.0.1** refused to connect.

I tried re-installing Rstudio server, but that didn't help. I am sure other people use SSL with their servers. I am stumped and would be happy for any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

[rogerjbos]

I figured this out. I had to use Local Port Forwarding, as described here

I have a ssh config entry for my shiny server, so my command is
ssh -L 8787:localhost:8787 shiny and then I have to leave that window open and point my browser to localhost:8787 and it works. Not the most seemless way, but I am happy to have access to Rstudio on my server again.

Hope this helps the next person.