How to configure Nginx with React Router HistoryLocation?

Question

I'm currently using Nginx as a reverse proxy and to serve my static assets. I was using React Router's HashLocation setting since it was the default and it allowed me to refresh on a route with no problems and no need for any additional configurations, but the issue with using that setting is the necessity of the url having /#/ prepending my routes (e.g. http://example-app.com/#/signup).

I'm now trying to switch to React Router's HistoryLocation setting, but I can't figure out how to properly configure Nginx to serve index.html for all routes (e.g. http://example-app.com/signup).

Here's my initial nginx setup (not including my mime.types file):

nginx.conf

# The maximum number of connections for Nginx is calculated by:
# max_clients = worker_processes * worker_connections
worker_processes auto;

# Process needs to run in foreground within container    
daemon off;

events {
  worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
  # Hide nginx version information.
  server_tokens off;

  # Define the MIME types for files.
  include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;

  # Update charset_types due to updated mime.types
  charset_types
    text/xml
    text/plain 
    text/vnd.wap.wml
    application/x-javascript
    application/rss+xml
    text/css
    application/javascript
    application/json;

  # Speed up file transfers by using sendfile() to copy directly
  # between descriptors rather than using read()/write().
  sendfile      on;

  # Define upstream servers
  upstream node-app {
    ip_hash;
    server 192.168.59.103:8000;
  }

  include sites-enabled/*;
}

default

server {
  listen  80;
  root    /var/www/dist;
  index   index.html index.htm;

  location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {
    expires 1d;
  }

  location @proxy {
    proxy_set_header    Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header    Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header    Host $host;
    proxy_set_header    X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header    X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header    X-NginX-Proxy true;

    proxy_http_version  1.1;
    proxy_redirect      off;
    proxy_pass          http://node-app;
    proxy_cache_bypass  $http_upgrade;
  }

  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ @proxy;
  }

}

This setup worked fine when I was using HashLocation, but after changing to HistoryLocation (the only change I made), I get back a 404 Cannot GET when attempting to refresh on a sub-route's url.

if (!-e $request_filename){
  rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.html break;
} 

in the location / block. This allows me to refresh and directly access the routes as top locations, but now I can't submit PUT/POST requests, instead getting back a 405 method not allowed. I can see the requests are not being handled properly as the configuration I added now rewrites all my requests to /index.html, and that's where my API is receiving all the requests, but I don't know how to accomplish both being able to submit my PUT/POST requests to the right resource, as well as being able to refresh and access my routes.

Answer 1

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

http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#try_files

I know your example is more complex with the @proxy but the above works fine for my application.