Nginx – Add expires header conditionally based on mime type in nginx

nginx

Running nginx 1.4.1 on ubuntu 12.10

Need to send expires header conditionally and based on mime type/content type of http response.

Added this simple piece of code inside location / {

if ($sent_http_content_type = "text/css") { 
expires 7d;
}

The expires header is not sent even if $sent_http_content_type contains "text/css"

How to fix this ?

Checking file extensions is not enough, because in my app js,css, images are being generated dynamically from php. So need to check the mime and add headers based on that too.

Best Answer

As of nginx 1.7.9:

map $sent_http_content_type $expires {
  default         off;
  application/pdf 42d;
  ~image/         max;
}

expires $expires;

NOTE: $sent_http_content_type is valid, but it cannot be accessed until the server has processed the request...

The answer is pointed at the map entry for application/pdf which allows a date value, or could even be application/pdf modified +42d for example

Related Solutions

Nginx – Conditionally changing MIME type in nginx

My advice: move on to Nginx 0.7.x and use try_files and proxy_cache, it will simplify your setup a lot. try_files was designed to factor out repetitive if (-f statements:

location / {
  try_files $uri/index.html $uri.html $uri @mongrel
}

location @mongrel {
  proxy_pass http://mongrel;
}

As of MIME type, if you'd use proxy_cache, you could return MIME type from your application and Nginx would cache it.

Nginx probably deliering wrong filetype for .css file with php tags

You could try to add

<?php
  header('Content-Type: text/css');
?>

(optionally with encoding) to your php-parsed css file. This must happen as first instruction (more accurate: before any output happens; php will error on you if any output happened before a call to header()) and there must not be any spaces before it.

This will send the HTTP header given together with the content which should do exactly that what you want.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Nginx – Conditionally changing MIME type in nginx

Nginx probably deliering wrong filetype for .css file with php tags

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