Phusion passenger ubuntu 14.04 nginx node js 403 Forbidden

app.js

var http = require('http');
var server = http.createServer(function(req, res) {
    res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
    res.end("hello from NodeJS App via Phusion Passenger with nginx!\n");
});
server.listen(3000);

files-and-permissions

kematzy@vps1:/var/sites$ ls -al
total 24K
drwxr-xr-x  6 root    root 4.0K Jun 29 01:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 13 root    root 4.0K Jun 23 05:57 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 23 05:57 sms.example.com
drwxr-xr-x  3 root    root 4.0K Jun 23 06:10 default

kematzy@vps1:/var/sites/sms.example.com$ ls -al
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x 3 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 23 05:57 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root    root 4.0K Jun 29 01:47 ..
drwxr-xr-x 4 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 29 20:58 current


kematzy@vps1:/var/sites/sms.example.com/current$ ls -al
total 20K
drwxr-xr-x 4 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 29 20:58 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 23 05:57 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 kematzy root  236 Jun 29 20:58 app.js
drwxr-xr-x 4 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 30 21:32 public
drwxrwxr-x 2 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 29 21:05 tmp


kematzy@vps1:/var/sites/sms.example.com/current/public$ ls -al
total 32K
drwxr-xr-x 4 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 30 21:32 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 29 20:58 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 29 02:28 css
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kematzy root  127 Jun 29 02:28 favicon.ico
drwxrwxr-x 2 kematzy root 4.0K Jun 29 02:28 images
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kematzy root   17 Jun 23 06:03 -index.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 kematzy root 6.5K Jun 29 21:01 -index.php

gistfile1.nginxconf

### sms.example.com

server {
	# listen 80;
	# listen [::]:80;
	
	# listen 443 ssl;

	# root /usr/share/nginx/html;
	root /var/sites/sms.example.com/current/public;
	
	passenger_enabled on;
	
	index index.html index.php index.htm;
	
	
	# Make site accessible from http://localhost/
	server_name sms.example.com;
	
	# ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.crt;
  	# ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.key;
	

	location / {
		try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
	}

	error_page 404 /404.html;

	# redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
	error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
	location = /50x.html {
		root /usr/share/nginx/html;
	}

	# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server
	location ~ \.php$ {
		try_files $uri =404;
		fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
		fastcgi_index index.php;
		fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
		include fastcgi_params;
	}

}

nginx.conf

user www-data;
worker_processes 4;
pid /run/nginx.pid;

events {
	worker_connections 768;
	# multi_accept on;
}

http {

	## Basic Settings ##
	sendfile on;
	tcp_nopush on;
	tcp_nodelay on;
	keepalive_timeout 65;
	types_hash_max_size 2048;
	# server_tokens off;

	server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
	# server_name_in_redirect off;

	include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
	default_type application/octet-stream;

	## Logging Settings ##
	access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
	error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

	## Gzip Settings ##
	gzip on;
	gzip_disable "msie6";

	# gzip_vary on;
	# gzip_proxied any;
	# gzip_comp_level 6;
	# gzip_buffers 16 8k;
	# gzip_http_version 1.1;
	# gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

	## nginx-naxsi config ##
	# Uncomment it if you installed nginx-naxsi
	# include /etc/nginx/naxsi_core.rules;

	## Phusion Passenger config ##
	passenger_root /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/phusion_passenger/locations.ini;
	passenger_ruby /usr/bin/ruby;

	## Virtual Host Configs ##
	include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
	include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}

It's because of the location / in your server block. If you have any location blocks, then you must re-specify passenger_enabled on inside it, otherwise Nginx will disable it.

See https://www.phusionpassenger.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Nginx.html#_passenger_enabled_lt_on_off_gt for more information.