Nginx Check Upstream Server Status With If statement - if-statement

Question

So im trying to check my http_response code from my upstream server, and pass a default response code when the upstream is down; and when the upstream is up proxy all requests to it.
my nginx (NOT WORKING) config looks like this
server {
listen 80;
server_name auth.example.com;
set $upstream 123.456.789.123:8080;
location #active{
proxy_pass_header Authorization;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Connection "";
proxy_buffering off;
client_max_body_size 10M;
proxy_read_timeout 36000s;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_pass http://$upstream;
}
location #outage {
return 200 "yass!";
}
location / {
error_page 500 = #outage;
set $200 #active;
if ($http_status != 404){
return 500;
}
if ($http_status = 200) {
return 200;
}
}
What i want to achieve is simple, if my upstream server is down return a default 200 response.
if my upstream server is available, proxy all requests to it.
how can i achieve this (a code example would be cool :-)) with nginx.

Answer 1

So I figured where i was going wrong, the following config worked for me.
server {
listen 80;
server_name auth.example.com;
set $upstream 123.456.789.123:8080;
location / {
proxy_pass_header Authorization;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Connection "";
proxy_intercept_errors on;
proxy_buffering off;
client_max_body_size 10M;
proxy_read_timeout 36000s;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_pass http://$upstream;
error_page 500 502 503 504 = #outage;
}
location #outage {
return 200 "yas";
}
}