I have an nginx.conf that looks something like this:

server {
    server_name subdomain.example.com;

    listen 443 ssl;
    ssl_certificate      /srv/ssl/something.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key  /srv/ssl/something.key;

    access_log /var/log/something-nginx-access.log;
    error_log /var/log/something-nginx-error.log;

    location /private { try_files $uri @yourapplication; }
    location @yourapplication {
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_pass 127.0.0.1:3131;

        auth_basic "Restricted";
        auth_basic_user_file /home/ubuntu/something.htpassword;
    }

    location / { try_files $uri @yourapplication; }
    location @yourapplication {
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_pass 127.0.0.1:3131;
    }

    keepalive_timeout 70;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name subdomain.example.com;

    access_log /var/log/something-nginx-access.log;
    error_log /var/log/something-nginx-error.log;

    location /private { try_files $uri @yourapplication; }
    location @yourapplication {
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_pass 127.0.0.1:3131;

        auth_basic "Restricted";
        auth_basic_user_file /home/ubuntu/something.htpassword;
    }

    location / { try_files $uri @yourapplication; }
    location @yourapplication {
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_pass 127.0.0.1:3131;
    }
}

That is to say — I'm running my app over http and https, and forwarding all request to uWSGI, which is running a Flask application.

I wish to have a private path, /private/ where anything underneath requires HTTP AUTH. Any other paths should not require auth.

My problem is that nginx is asking for auth no matter where I make a request, e.g., '/', '/cool_page'.

How can I configure nginx correctly to only ask for authentication under /private?

Finally, the config seems to have a lot of repetition etc, is there a way of reducing my configuration down further?

Sorry, I'm new to nginx!