Nginx: How to set expiration for 404 responses

cachehttp-headershttp-status-code-404nginx

My nginx server acts as a proxy for another server, which sometimes returns 404s.
I want the 404 responses to be cacheable, just like 200 responses.

However, I cannot use expires, because the documentation states that:

expires works only for 200, 204, 301, 302, and 304 responses.

Note that caching of non-200 responses is perfectly possible according to the HTTP spec.

So how can I set an expiration date on 404 responses?

Best Answer

I see two options:

Modify another server to provide caching headers.
Use headers_more module. It allows add headers to error http responses, but you'll have to recompile nginx.
Use Lua module.

Original answer

It's impossible to cache error pages on client (browser)

Probably you want to cache response from another server and it possible with proxy_cache directive. Also take a look at proxy_cache_valid directive.

Correct way in new versions of nginx

Turn out my first answer to this question was correct at certain time, but it turned into another pitfall - to stay up to date please check Taxing rewrite pitfalls

I have been corrected by many SE users, so the credit goes to them, but more importantly, here is the correct code:

server {
       listen         80;
       server_name    my.domain.com;
       return         301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
       listen         443 ssl;
       server_name    my.domain.com;
       # add Strict-Transport-Security to prevent man in the middle attacks
       add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000" always; 

       [....]
}

Nginx – Expires directive returned in the ngix server response header

If you are using Apache behind Nginx, then I assume you have a dynamic site. So, I guess http://www.yoursite.com serves dynamic content. By default, Nginx sets expires only for static files. So, please do the same test for a static file such as http://www.yoursite.com/style.css and you might notice the difference now.

Best Answer

Original answer

Related Solutions

NGINX Redirect – How to Rewrite All HTTP Requests to HTTPS While Maintaining Sub-Domain

Correct way in new versions of nginx

Nginx – Expires directive returned in the ngix server response header

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