Nginx – Configure nginx to serve static files

file-servergoogle-compute-enginenginxstatic-content

I'm trying to serve static files(HTMLs, JS and CSS) from a Google compute engine instance running Debian 8.
I used git to clone the web app to the folder /var/www/prod/app with command

sudo git clone <my repo>

I made a conf file in sites-enabled folder app.conf. Here's the content

server {
    listen 80;
    root /var/www/prod/app;
    location / {
    }
}

Isn't this config enough to make my machine serve the files when I type my machine's ip address/path ?

I see the welcome to nginx page when I type my instance's ip address in browser. But none of the files in prod/app are served. I get 404 for all the paths I try. Could someone help me configure this.

Best Answer

You need to add try_files inside location and make it the default server:

server {
    listen 80 default_server;

    root /var/www/prod/app;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }
}

Then you need to restart the nginx service.

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Nginx – Help needed setting up nginx to serve static files

I looked at the nginx error logs and found that it was trying to serve the media from /var/django/myproject/site_media/site_media instead of /var/django/myproject/site_media --weird.

I changed root /var/django/myproject/site_media; to root /var/django/myproject; and it works now.

Nginx – use nginx environment variables within static files that nginx serves

I've been looking into resolving the same issue as the OP and this post came up in Google search, so thought I'd add a potential solution.

This post outlines how you can expose an environment variable within nginx config: https://blog.doismellburning.co.uk/environment-variables-in-nginx-config/

And you can return content without having a file in the file system: Reply with 200 from Nginx config without serving a file

Putting these two things together we end up with the following:

env MY_ENV_VAR;

# Snip

http {
    # Snip

    server {
        # Snip

        location ~ ^/config.js$ {
            add_header Content-Type text/javascript;
            set_by_lua $env_var 'return os.getenv("MY_ENV_VAR")';
            return 200 'const MY_ENV_VAR = \'$env_var\'';
        }
    }
}

This has worked for me in a test environment. It's a little cumbersome (not sure it's better than auto-generating a file on Docker launch that contains the vars you need).

Hope that helps.

Best Answer

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Nginx – Help needed setting up nginx to serve static files

Nginx – use nginx environment variables within static files that nginx serves

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