Nginx location regex not working, how to enable regex

nginx

In the nginx config I just want to use a regex for the location but I can't get any regex to work.

With a plain string in the location path it works and I can access the file from the browser. Here from my config:

location /profile/491ecdcd4.png {
    root /srv/www/XXX/code/app/public;
}

But I want to specify the folder for all png files, so I want to do it via regex. But as soon as I switch to regex with the ~* I can't get it to work anymore. None of the following does work:

location ~* ^/profile/.*\.png$ {            # The regex like I would want it
location ~* /profile/491ecdcd4\.png$ {      # File name and line end
location ~* \/profile\/491ecdcd4\.png$ {    # Slashes escaped
location ~* "\/profile\/491ecdcd4\.png$" {  # Quotes around the regex
location ~* profile {                       # Just plain the path

If I specify the location like that, I get a 404 error when I try to access the png in the browser. ~ instead of ~* also doesn't work.

The whole config is like that (shortened):

server {
    listen      443 ssl;
    server_name XXX;

    ssl                 on;
    ssl_certificate     /srv/www/XXX/certs/cacert.chain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /srv/www/XXX/certs/privkey.pem;

    # Special treatment and the problematic section
    location ~* /profile/491ecdcd4.png {
        root /srv/www/XXX/code/app/public;
    }

    # For the rest
    location / {
        root /srv/www/XXX/code/app/build;
    }
}

“`

Any ideas?

nginx version: nginx/1.6.2

edit: I edited the answer for clarity.

Best Answer

You should read "understanding Nginx location block selection", particularly this part

location optional_modifier location_match {
   . . .
}
The location_match in the above defines what Nginx should check the request URI against. The existence or nonexistence of the modifier in the above example affects the way that the Nginx attempts to match the location block. The modifiers below will cause the associated location block to be interpreted as follows:

(none): If no modifiers are present, the location is interpreted as a prefix match. This means that the location given will be matched against the beginning of the request URI to determine a match.

=: If an equal sign is used, this block will be considered a match if the request URI exactly matches the location given.

~: If a tilde modifier is present, this location will be interpreted as a case-sensitive regular expression match.

~*: If a tilde and asterisk modifier is used, the location block will be interpreted as a case-insensitive regular expression match.

^~: If a carat and tilde modifier is present, and if this block is selected as the best non-regular expression match, regular expression matching will not take place.

In short, you're using a prefix match as you have no ~ character. Once you fix that, I don't see any regular expression here. Here's a location with a regex I use for caching images as an example

location ~*  \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|css|js|ico|svg)$ {
  expires 8d;
}

You could ask another question if you need help working out the regular expression you need. I don't use them much so it takes me a while to get back up to speed each time I do it.

Related Solutions

Nginx multiple location issues

There are a few things wrong with your config, the two relevant ones being:

Paths within a location block still include the matched path.
Rewrites with 'last' continue by looking through all available locations for a match (they break out of the current location block).

For instance, take the URL example.org/news/test.htm

The location /news block will match it
The path used is then /news/test.htm - this does not change, just because it is in the location block
Adding the path to the document_root, you get: /var/www/vhosts/news/news/test.htm
Your if (!-e $request_filename) statement should capture this non-existent file
You rewrite the path to /index.php
Since you are using last the processes starts over (breaking out of the location block)
/index.php is now captured by the location /app block.

The problem mentioned above, with the root directive, is compounded when you go to your app location block. Unlike with the 'news' block, where you could conceivably just remove 'news' from the path (since it will be added back in), you cannot do this for the app path, which ends in 'webroot'.

The solution lies in the alias directive. This does not change the document_root, but it does change the file path that is used to serve the request. Unfortunately, rewrite and try_files tend to behave a bit unexpectedly with alias.

Let's start with a simple example - no PHP - just HTML and your Perl block - but with a folder structure matching yours (tested on Nginx 1.0.12, CentOS 6):

server {
    server_name example.org;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/example.org.error.log notice;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/example.org.access.log;
    rewrite_log on;

    location = / {
        rewrite ^ /index.pl last;
    }

    location ^~ /community {
        rewrite ^ /index.pl last;
    }

    location ~ \.pl {
        root   /var/www/vhosts/home;

        [fastcgi_stuff...]
    }


    location ^~ /news {
        alias /var/www/vhosts/news;
        index index.htm;

        try_files $uri $uri/ /news/index.htm;
    }

    location ^~ /app {
        alias /var/www/vhosts/app/app/webroot;
        index index.htm;

        try_files $uri $uri/ /app/index.htm;
    }

    location / {
        rewrite ^/(.*) /app/$1 last;
    }
}

location = / - will only match the root path
location ^~ /community - will match every path starting with /community
location ~ \.pl - will match all files that contain .pl
location ^~ /news - will match every path starting with /news
location ^~ /app - will match every path starting with /app
location / - will match all paths not matched above

You should be able to remove the ^~ - but it may offer a slight performance improvement, since it stops searching once a match is found.

While it should be a simple matter to add the PHP blocks back in, there is, unfortunately, a slight difficulty - try_files (and your rewrite) do not end up passing the desired path to the nested location block - and using alias when only the extension is specified in the location block doesn't work.

One solution is to use separate location blocks that perform a capture together with the alias directive - it isn't quite elegant, but as far as I can tell, it does work (again, tested on Nginx 1.0.12, CentOS 6 - of course, I didn't setup CakePHP, Wordpress, and Perl - I just used a couple of PHP and HTML files in each folder)

server {
    server_name example.org;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/example.org.error.log notice;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/example.org.access.log;
    rewrite_log on;

    location = / {
        rewrite ^ /index.pl last;
    }

    location ^~ /community {
        rewrite ^ /index.pl last;
    }

    location ~ \.pl {
        root   /var/www/vhosts/home;
        access_log /var/log/nginx/home.access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/home.error.log;
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_index index.pl;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_pass  unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
    }

    location /news {
        access_log /var/log/nginx/news.access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/news.error.log notice;
        alias /var/www/vhosts/news;
        index index.php;
        try_files $uri $uri/ /news/index.php;
    }

    location ~* ^/news/(.*\.php)$ {
        access_log /var/log/nginx/news.php.access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/news.php.error.log notice;
        alias /var/www/vhosts/news/$1;
        try_files "" /news/index.php;
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $1;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/vhosts/news/$1;
        fastcgi_pass  127.0.0.1:9000;
    }

    location /app {
        alias /var/www/vhosts/app/app/webroot;
        access_log /var/log/nginx/app.access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/app.error.log notice;
        index index.php;
        try_files $uri $uri/ /app/index.php;
    }

    location ~* ^/app/(.*\.php)$ {
        access_log /var/log/nginx/news.access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/news.error.log notice;
        alias /var/www/vhosts/app/app/webroot/$1;
        try_files "" /app/index.php;
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $1;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/vhosts/app/app/webroot/$1;
        fastcgi_pass  127.0.0.1:9000;
    }

    location / {
        rewrite ^/(.*) /app/$1 last;
    }
}

The above config, takes the simple one above, and makes two changes:

Add two location blocks:
- location ~* ^/news/(.*\.php)$ - will match all files ending in .php, with paths starting with /news/
- location ~* ^/app/(.*\.php)$ - will match all files ending in .php, with paths starting with /app/
Remove the ^~ matching - this is required so that the two added location blocks can match against paths (otherwise matching would stop on the /news or /app blocks).

It should be noted that the order for location matching is very important here:

Exact matches first (using =)
Matches with ^~ second
Matching regex blocks
Conventional strings - only if no matching regex is found

A matching regex will supersede a straight string!

An important point of mention is that when captures are used with alias, the entire URL is replaced - not just the leading folder. Unfortunately, this means that $fastcgi_script_name is left empty - so, I have used $1 above instead.

I am sure you will need to make a few changes, but the basic premise should be functional. You should be able to separate the blocks into multiple files as needed - ordering shouldn't affect the config.

Nginx proxy pass works for https but not http

I believe you need a separate server block for HTTP. For example:

server {
listen 80;

location / {
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_cache off;
        proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:5000;
        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;
}
}

You would then remove listen 80; from the existing server block.

Best Answer

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Nginx multiple location issues

Nginx proxy pass works for https but not http

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