Nginx url rewrite rule

mod-rewritenginxrewrite

I'm doing a migration from a WordPress blog to a Jekyll Blog using NGINX as my HTTP server and I don't want to break the Internet by leaving some URL's not working as expected. I got to a point where I really need to ask for help.

The original WordPress blog URLs are like this:

example.com/series/

example.com/series/some-stuff/

I want to mimic this urls by removing the file extension (.html) and respond with a non 404 page if someone has stored the WordPress URLs in his bookmarks. The Jekyll default URLs without any rewrites are like this:

example.com/series/ --> This one is correct by default.

example.com/series/some-stuff.html --> Not ok.

As you can see the first URL, series section its already ok because it's the index.html page and Jekyll hides de file name in that case (as expected), but when you access any other page in the same section (/series) you get the full file name with extension. Ok, so, I started working in the rewrites to remove the extension and be able to respond to the same wordpress URL and got here:

rewrite ^/series/(.*)\.html*$ /series/$1 permanent;
rewrite ^/series/(.*)/$ /series/$1 permanent;

example.com/series/ redirects to example.com/series/index --> It's working ok but I don't like that now it's showing me the file name (index).

The other ones are working as I expect and are responding to the old WordPress URls.

example.com/some-stuff.html redirects to example.com/series/some-stuff --> Correct!

example.com/series/some-stuff/ redirects to example.com/series/some-stuff --> Correct!

As you can see I've manage to make this URLs work but with the exception of adding the file name (index) to the main series page. All I want is to do is fix the URL that I "broke" with the rewrites (example.com/series/index) but keep the others as they are after the rewrite. Thanks!

edit:

I tried to make a rewrite just for example.com/series/index doing this:

rewrite ^/(series/index.html$|series/index$) /series/ permanent;

But it didn't worked all I get is 404s.

I also tried to do a location + alias for that URL and got a 404 also.

Best Answer

The question is very poorly formatted, with obvious mistakes in content, inconsistencies between the lines, and omission of other relevant rewrite rules to shed the light onto the complete and full picture, so, I'm not sure a correct answer could be provided.

However, the general idea is that there is a difference between permanent and redirect rewrites on the one hand, which rewrite the URL as visible to the user, and internal rewrites that rewrite the URL within the server itself, on the other.

So, what you really want here is an internal rewrite of the user-visible URL back to what it actually is internally. Maybe something like this, and remove any other rewrites for /series/index:

rewrite ^/series/$ /series/index last;
if ($request_uri = /series/index) {  return 301 /series/;  }

Related Solutions

Nginx rewrite all html files except index

You pretty much need to use a if statement, but it's perfectly safe to do so if you only have rewrite directives inside it. You want to check the $uri variable since this includes modifications made by the index module.

if ($uri !~ /index\.html$) {
    rewrite ^/test/(\d\d\d\d)/(\d\d)/(.+)\.html$ /$1/$2/$3/ permanent;
}

To remove the index.html part you need to send a redirect, but only if the client specified index.html, and it wasn't added by the index module. This means we need another if statement to check this. We use the $request_uri variable here which is what the client actually sent.

if ($request_uri ~ /index\.html($|\?)) {
    rewrite ^(.*)/index\.html$ $1/ permanent;
}

Nginx – Cannot get simple nginx rewrite rule working in subdirectory

The rewrite directives seem to be correct.

However, from your provided information I can't tell you much about what is wrong.

Find out where the 404 happens: before or after the redirect.
Examine the log files or use in-browser development tools (like Firebug) to follow the redirect flow.
Is that given snippet all you got inside the server block? What about the logic that handles the redirect targets?
You should post the rest as well.
Also, look out for other location blocks possibly interfering with the URLs.
See the nginx docs for the order of matching locations.

Update: Guess I found your mistake:

The location ~* \.(html|htm)$ block matches all your requests usually going to /classifieds/ because regular expression are prefered by the mathing engine by default.
To raise priority of location /classifieds/ you should use the ^~ flag:

location ^~ /classifieds/ {
    # REWRITES HERE
}

Corresponding docs entry:

It is possible to disable regular expression checks after literal string matching by using "^~" prefix. If the most specific match literal location has this prefix: regular expressions aren't checked.

Redirect loop:

It seems like you want to keep the SEO-friendly URIs for outer appearance.
In this case, modify the rewrites to only rewrite internally - without redirecting the browser.

To achieve this behaviour, use the last flag instead of permanent as follows:

rewrite SEO-PATTERN INTERNAL-URI last;

The location match engine will then try to match the rewritten URI.
While redirect and permanent trigger a HTTP redirect (temporary/permanent), last and break will only affect the internal URI value.
It is all described in the docs.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Nginx rewrite all html files except index

Nginx – Cannot get simple nginx rewrite rule working in subdirectory

Redirect loop:

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