Issues with UFW firewall

I selected localhost:8080 , but that connection is refused using nginx with letsencrypt. followed simple install and not so simple guide, Ubuntu 18:04
tried ufw allow 8080.

Iv’e tried both tuts from brand new vps instances, installed and tried archlinux, build from scratch and I cant get anything to work.

Update: I have narrowed it down to the firewall: in syslogs I have a UFW block on any port I try, standalone or with reverse proxy.

sudo ufw status
Status: active

To Action From


OpenSSH ALLOW Anywhere
8080/tcp ALLOW Anywhere
80/tcp ALLOW Anywhere
80 ALLOW Anywhere
Writefreely ALLOW Anywhere
OpenSSH (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
8080/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
80/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
80 (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
Writefreely (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)

I also added an app profile foe Writefreely, opening port 80.

I am using Ubuntu 18.04 VPS at linode.com

have you had any luck getting this sorted?

I wrote a guide for 19.04 but it should be pretty well the same for 18.04. You could double check against that.