How to use dynamic root path in nginx based on $uri? - django

Question

I am hosting multiple django apps in one server.
When the user visits : http://dev-app.example.com/testapp1
I need to serve /static with a root path dynamically generated from the $uri, because I am not using the same assets across the apps but the same path to them.
My nginx config files tree :
nginx
├── sites-enabled
│   ├── myconf
│   myapps/
│   ├── testapp1
│   └── testapp2
myconf file :
server {
listen 8088;
server_name dev-app.example.com;
location = favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
location /static
# The line below isn't working even if the $uri has the string I want to concatenate
root /home/user$uri/current;
}
include /etc/nginx/myapps/*;
}
testapp1 file :
location /testapp1 {
include uwsgi_params;
uwsgi_pass unix:/home/user/testapp1/current/testapp1.sock;
}
testapp2 file :
location /testapp2 {
include uwsgi_params;
uwsgi_pass unix:/home/user/testapp2/current/testapp2.sock;
}
I want to use nginx built-in variable $uri to build my root path for /static location in myconf file for each requested app accordingly.
When the user opens http://dev-app.example.com/whatever I want to serve this :
# In the myconf file
location /static {
root /home/user/whatever/current;
}

Answer 1

It won't work that way.
First, you have to understand how HTTP requests work. Each request, either for your website or for static files is separate and it have it's own URL. Nginx can't pair by itself request for static file to request for website from which that static file was requested...
The only way that nginx may know that is Referer header, that browser can send with request to static file. This may contain path to web document from which static file was requested, but it also can be empty! It also can just contain path to root of your website.
Also, browsers will try to cache everything they can, so if user visits http://example.com/testapp1 and that site contains reference for http://example.com/static/style.css, browser will cache it and on request to http://example.com/testapp2 browser won't download new css file, but will rather use cached one.
If you're sure that your web clients will always send proper Referer header and won't cache any static files, you may try to extract path to app from $http_referer variable in nginx.

Answer 2

Set the static location inside each server block
server {
listen 80;
server_name pool.simlabdevelopments.com;
root /srv/http/simlabdevelopments.com;
location /static/ {
alias /srv/webapps/autopool/static/;
}
}