nginx proxy_pass 404 error, don't understand why

Question

I am trying to pass off all calls to /api to my webservice but I keep getting 404s with the following config. Calls to / return index.html as expected. Does anyone know why?

upstream backend{     server localhost:8080; }   server {      location /api {         proxy_pass http://backend;     }      location / {         root /html/dir;     } } 

More info here

adept@HogWarts:/etc/nginx/sites-available$ curl -i localhost/api/authentication/check/user/email HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Server: nginx/1.2.1 Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:49:03 GMT Content-Length: 0 Connection: keep-alive  adept@HogWarts:/etc/nginx/sites-available$ curl -i localhost:8080/authentication/check/user/email HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/json Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:49:20 GMT Transfer-Encoding: chunked  {"user":["false"],"emailAddress":["false"]} 

Answer 1

Just want to remind others that the slash(backend*/*) after your proxy_pass url is very important!

if the config is

location /api/ {     proxy_pass http://backend; } 

and you visit http://abc.xyz/api/endpoint, you would be directed to http://backend/api/endpoint;

if the config is

location /api/ {     proxy_pass http://backend/; } 

and you visit http://abc.xyz/api/endpoint, you would be directed to http://backend/endpoint.

That's the difference.

For more, refer to: Nginx reverse proxy return 404

Answer 2

This

location /api {     proxy_pass http://backend; } 

Needs to be this

location /api/ {     proxy_pass http://backend/; }