Matching path issues in nginx

Introduction#

Dealing with nginx is quite common, and I often encounter 404 issues that require me to look up information every time to come up with a solution. This time, I will summarize it.

Problem#

The domain being accessed is localhost/store/add_order.html, and the web root directory is /www/web. store is a subdirectory.

Solution#

Configure as follows
Default path (Mac)

/usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;
    root   /www/web;
    #charset koi8-r;
    location / {
        index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    }


    #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;
    }

    # proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80
    #
    #location ~ \.php$ {
    #    proxy_pass   http://127.0.0.1;
    #}

    # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
    #
    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass   php:9000;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        include        fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

    location ^~ /api/ { 
        proxy_pass http://www.api.com/; 
    }



    # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
    # concurs with nginx's one
    #
    #location ~ /\.ht {
    #    deny  all;
    #}
}

There are 3 matching rules in the above location:

First match location = /50x.html
Second match location ~ .php$
Finally match /

For example, http://localhost/store/add-order.html will look for the store/add-order.html file in the /www/web directory.

For example, http://localhost/store/add-order.php will combine /www/web directory and store/add-order.php into SCRIPT_FILENAME and pass it to the PHP component.

Proxy#

For example, http://localhost/api/add-order.php will be proxied to http://www.api.com/add-order.php.

But if there is no trailing /,

proxy_pass http://www.api.com;

it will be proxied to http://www.api.com/api/add-order.php.

Additional Information#

Location is used to match URLs.
It performs fuzzy matching.
Without "/", location /abc/def can match the /abc/defghi request, as well as /abc/def/ghi, etc.
With "/", location /abc/def/ cannot match the /abc/defghi request, only /abc/def/anything-like requests.

Extension#

location = / {
   # Rule A
}
location = /login {
   # Rule B
}
location ^~ /static/ {
   # Rule C
}
location ~ \.(gif|jpg|png|js|css)$ {
   # Rule D, note: matching is based on the case inside the parentheses. If all lowercase inside the parentheses, it only matches lowercase.
}
location ~* \.png$ {
   # Rule E
}
location !~ \.xhtml$ {
   # Rule F
}
location !~* \.xhtml$ {
   # Rule G
}
location / {
   # Rule H
}

The resulting effects are as follows:

Accessing the root directory /, such as http://localhost/, will match Rule A.

Accessing http://localhost/login will match Rule B, while http://localhost/register will match Rule H.

Accessing http://localhost/static/a.html will match Rule C.

Accessing http://localhost/a.gif, http://localhost/b.jpg will match Rule D and Rule E, but Rule D takes precedence and Rule E does not work. However, http://localhost/static/c.png will match Rule C first.

Accessing http://localhost/a.PNG will match Rule E and will not match Rule D because Rule E is case-insensitive.

Accessing http://localhost/a.xhtml will not match Rule F and Rule G.

Accessing http://localhost/a.XHTML will not match Rule G (because of !). Rule F and Rule G are exclusion rules, even if they match the matching rules, they will not be matched. So think about where they will be used in practical applications.

Accessing http://localhost/category/id/1111 will ultimately match Rule H because none of the above rules match. At this point, nginx forwards the request to the backend application server, such as FastCGI (php), tomcat (jsp), with nginx acting as a reverse proxy server.

Priority: (location = ) > (location full path) > (location ^~ path) > (location ~,~* regex order from top to bottom, matching in the last rule) > (location partial starting path) > (/)