How do I serve a single file in a location directive?

Question

How do I return a single file in location directive without any fallbacks? try_files needs at least two. This seems simple but I can't find it in the docs or examples.

location / {
      try_files one_file; # => wrong number of parameters
}

Answer 1

The simplest way is to use the ability to redirect to an error code if the file doesn't exist.

location / {
      try_files /theOnlyFile.html =404;
}