Nginx – Why is Nginx serving `index.html` instead of a 404

http-status-code-404nginx

I have a site where requesting a particular JSON file and finding it missing triggers a request for a fallback JSON file. However, rather than getting a 404 for the first file, I was getting the contents of index.html, which isn't valid JSON and created an error.

I traced the problem to this directive:

location / {
                # First attempt to serve request as file, then
                # as directory, then fall back to index.html
                try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
            }

How can I get it to serve a 404 for mysite.com/some/nonexistent/file.json, but still get index.html for mysite.com/?

Best Answer

After some reading, I changed the try_files directive:

# Old way: fallback to index.html
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;

# New way: serve a 404 response
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;

Another option would be:

# Fall back to this error page
try_files $uri $uri/ error_pages/404.html

I still have this directive to handle serving index.html for mysite.com/:

server {
  # ...
  index index.html index.html;
  #...
}

Related Solutions

nginx try_files – How Does try_files Work in nginx?

try_files tries the literal path you specify in relation to the defined root directive and sets the internal file pointer. If you use for instance try_files /app/cache/ $uri @fallback; with index index.php index.html; then it will test the paths in this order:

$document_root/app/cache/index.php
$document_root/app/cache/index.html
$document_root$uri

before finally internally redirecting to the @fallback named location. You can also use a file or a status code (=404) as your last parameter but if using a file it must exist.

You should note that try_files itself will not issue an internal redirect for anything but the last parameter. Meaning you cannot do the following: try_files $uri /cache.php @fallback; as that will cause nginx to set the internal file pointer to $document_root/cache.php and serve it, but since no internal redirect takes place the locations aren't re-evaluated and as such it will be served as plain text. (The reason it works with PHP files as the index is that the index directive will issue an internal redirect)

Nginx – Why does this Nginx config result in “rewrite or internal redirection cycle”

The problem with your config is that if /index.html cannot be found, it will redirect to /index.html. Such configurations are better to avoid, even if you are sure that the file is here. A configuration like this don't have this problem:

root /opt/the-jam/www/dist/;

location / {
    try_files $uri /index.html;
    ...
}

location = /index.html {
    # no try_files here
    ...
}

With such configuration you also will be able to see what's wrong with /index.html and why it can't be accessed. My best guess is that access rights on some intermediate directories doesn't allow nginx to access /opt/the-jam/www/dist/index.html.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

nginx try_files – How Does try_files Work in nginx?

Nginx – Why does this Nginx config result in “rewrite or internal redirection cycle”

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