nginx - can't figure out location rewrites - regex

Question

I'm trying to redirect different URI requests to different EC2 containers, I've been using nginx for years as a catchall reverse proxy to apache but now I'd like to have some rewrites done at nginx level.
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish:
server {
listen 80;
server_name _;
gzip on;
gzip_static on;
gzip_buffers 16 8k;
gzip_comp_level 9;
gzip_http_version 1.0;
gzip_min_length 0;
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/x-javascript;
gzip_vary on;
location / {
# catch the following URI's including homepage: /contact.html, /terms.html, /
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_read_timeout 240;
proxy_connect_timeout 240;
proxy_send_timeout 240;
send_timeout 240;
proxy_pass http://servers_static;
}
location / {
# catch everything not matched above
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_read_timeout 240;
proxy_connect_timeout 240;
proxy_send_timeout 240;
send_timeout 240;
proxy_pass http://servers_dynamic;
}
}
I'm sure this just a simple regex issue, but I have never understood that stuff. Can someone help me out?

Answer 1

Create a file /etc/nginx/EC2 with the common proxy settings:
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_read_timeout 240;
proxy_connect_timeout 240;
proxy_send_timeout 240;
send_timeout 240;
Your main config then becomes:
server {
listen 80;
server_name _;
#gzip settings cut for brevity, add them back in
# static content
location = / {include /etc/nginx/EC2; proxy_pass http://servers_static;}
location = /contact.html {include /etc/nginx/EC2; proxy_pass http://servers_static;}
location = /terms.html {include /etc/nginx/EC2; proxy_pass http://servers_static;}
# dynamic content
location / { include /etc/nginx/EC2; proxy_pass http://servers_dynamic; }
}
you might also combine the locations for the .html static content pages like so:
location ~ (contact|terms).html {
include /etc/nginx/EC2; proxy_pass http://servers_static;}
it's probably slightly more efficient to have the exact matching locations, and as long as you don't have to many the resulting duplication shouldn't make the config to unwieldly

Answer 2

Take a look at try_files. It will successively try the paths you give it. In this example, any static file at /var/www/sites/foo/current/public/$uri will be returned, only routing the request to the app if no static file exists.
upstream app {
server unix:/tmp/.sock_my_app;
}
server {
# path for static files
root /var/www/sites/foo/current/public;
# Prefer to serve static files directly from nginx to avoid unnecessary
# requests to the application server.
try_files $uri/index.html $uri.html $uri #app;
location #app {
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
# timeouts
# reverse proxy to an upstream
proxy_pass http://app;
}
}