Nginx default catch all configuration

nginx

We are using nginx to serve static content and apache for dynamic content.

I have defined a default server configuration as:

#Set a default server that simply proxies all requests to apache
server 
{
    listen 80 default_server;
    server_name _;

    location / 
    {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
    }
}

Is the the best way to proxy everything to apache if for some reason a server_name does not match?

Best Answer

Yes this is the best and the only sensible way. You could even omit the servername completely.

Related Solutions

Nginx – Setting up nginx as proxy to apache; All good, but nginx doesn’t serve media

Add something like this:

location ~* ^.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|pdf|ppt|txt|tar|wav|bmp|rtf|js|ico|swf)$ {
  root /home/site/folder/static;
  expires 7d;

You will then have the files with those extension delivered from a different place. You can give then different expire dates and compression etc also.

The complete file would look like this:

server {

    listen 208.109.252.110:80;
    server_name netconf;

    autoindex on;


    access_log /home/site/server_logs/nginx_access.log;
    error_log /home/site/server_logs/nginx_error.log;

    location / {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:80/;
    include /etc/nginx/proxy.conf;
    }

    location location ~* ^.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|pdf|ppt|txt|tar|wav|bmp|rtf|js|ico|swf)$ {
        root /home/site/folder/static;
        expires 7d;
    }
}

You might also want to add some more options to your files. Check out the following links for some special options for dynamic and static content and some overall security issues.

NGINX – Proxy HTTPS Requests to an HTTP Backend

The type of proxy you are trying to set up is called a reverse proxy. A quick search for reverse proxy nginx got me this page:

http://intranation.com/entries/2008/09/using-nginx-reverse-proxy/

In addition to adding some useful features like an X-Forwarded-For header (which will give your app visibility into the actual source IP), it specifically does:

proxy_redirect off

Good luck! :)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Nginx – Setting up nginx as proxy to apache; All good, but nginx doesn’t serve media

NGINX – Proxy HTTPS Requests to an HTTP Backend

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