Nginx: use try_files to serve file instead of directory

nginx

My server uses nginx, and my domain serves static html web pages, i.e.

http://server.com/download.html

For various reasons, I would like that users are able to fetch download.html through the following URLs:

http://server.com/download.html  (works)
http://server.com/download       (works)
http://server.com/download/      (works not)

I got the first two working, but the last one always returns /404.html.

Is try_files able to do what I want, or do I have to use the rewrite directive instead?

My nginx configuration:

location / {
    # First attempt to serve request as file, then
    # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
    try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/ /404.html;
    # auth_basic "Restricted";
    # auth_basic_user_file /var/www/upscaledb/htpasswd;
}

Thanks,
Christoph

Best Answer

If you add a location to rewrite the URI without the trailing slash, then your existing location / and try_files directive can do the rest:

location ~ ./$ { 
    rewrite ^(.+)/$ $1 last; 
}

Related Solutions

How to Set Up a Fallback Error Page in Nginx

I ended up going with something a lot closer to my original idea. The key I was missing turned out to be the directive recursive_error_pages. All I really had to do was turn this "on" and my original idea worked. Here's what the relevant part of my conf looks like now:

server {
    ...

    root /var/www/someserver.com/;

    error_page 400 404      /404.html;
    error_page 500 502 504  /500.html;
    error_page 503          /503.html;

    recursive_error_pages   on;

    location ~* ^/(404\.html|500\.html|503\.html)$ {
        log_not_found off;
        error_page 404 = @default;
    }

    location @default {
        log_not_found on;
        root /var/www/default;
    }
}

I included other error types that were not part of my original question here because this is what ended up causing me difficulties with Martin F's approach, which was otherwise excellent. The log_not_found directive just ensures that I don't get 404s in my log when the error page isn't found in the original root.

Nginx custom 404 error page for virtual host

Firstly, set your root directive outside the location block - in this case, above the error_page - directive. See the nginx pitfalls page. The reason for this is that many directives (including error_page) need to know paths relative to something - and all paths are assumed to be relative (i.e. /404.html is not in the root of your file system - it is relative to your document root).

server{
    #listen 80; - not needed
    server_name www.foo.com;
    root    /srv/www/foo/public_html;
    expires     1M;
    access_log  /srv/www/foo/logs/access.log;
    error_log   /srv/www/foo/logs/error.log;

    error_page 404 /404.html;

    location / {
        index   index.html;
        rewrite ^/(.*)/$ /$1 permanent;
        try_files "${uri}.html" $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    location = /404.html {
        internal;
    }       
}

If the above does not resolve your error, increase the verbosity of your error_log (e.g. to 'info') and see what page nginx is actually serving when you hit a 404.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to Set Up a Fallback Error Page in Nginx

Nginx custom 404 error page for virtual host

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