Nginx to serve static page before dynamic

Question

I want to serve static HTML files with NGINX, but if the file is missing, it should load a PHP file instead and PHP should handle the content.

I've been testing several combinations of try_files, but I can't get my head around it. I have a dummy PHP app that looks like this:

./ ../ dynamic.php index.php static/ static/static.html 

Then I have a small PHP code on index like this:

<?php  $path = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']; $pattern = '/^\/(.*)\.html$/';  $matches = [];  $results = preg_match($pattern, $path, $matches);  if (count($matches) > 0) {     if ($matches[1] == "dynamic") {         require 'dynamic.php';     } else {         echo "Not found!";     } } else {     echo "Index page!"; } 

The results of browsing to each page should be:

http://foo.bar/             - Loads index.php http://foo.bar/static.html  - Loads static/static.html http://foo.bar/dynamic.html - Loads index.php & PHP requires dynamic.php http://foo.bar/baz.html     - Loads index.php with "not found" message 

This is what I got in the NGINX config file:

server {     listen 80;     server_name .foo.bar *.foo.bar;      access_log /var/log/nginx/foo.access.log;     error_log  /var/log/nginx/foo.error.log;      root /var/www/foo;     index index.php;      location / {         # Trying with 'try_files' here. No success.     }      location ~ \.php$ {         try_files $uri =404;         fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm-foo.sock;         fastcgi_index index.php;         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;         include fastcgi_params;     } } 

I've been trying repeatedly and evidently utterly failing with this line:

try_files $uri $uri/static /index.php; 

I am missing something. Help?

Answer 1

I would use your static directory as document root. This ensures that nobody can execute /dynamic.php directly, however, it will be forwarded to your index.php by the named location block @php.

This configuration example is untested!

server {     index       index.php;     root        /var/www/foo/static;     server_name foo.bar *.foo.bar;      location / {         try_files $uri @php;     }      location @php {         include fastcgi_params;          fastcgi_pass  unix:/var/run/php5-fpm-foo.sock;         fastcgi_index index.php;         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/foo/index.php;     } } 

1. You don't need the listen directive if it only contains 80 since this is the default.
2. The server_names should not contain a leading dot.
3. The $uri always contains the requested URI including the leading slash (e.g. /static.html) and nginx will prefix them with the document root upon invocation of try_files (e.g. /var/www/foo/static.html). Hence, you need to set your static directory before the $uri (e.g. /static$uri becomes /var/www/foo/static/static.html).
4. You don't need fastcgi_split_path_info because you are not using that feature.
5. Your try_files in your PHP location makes it impossible for nginx to properly forward things. A request for /dynamic.html does not end on .php, hence, try_files always fails.

Answer 2

There are a number of ways of hiding the static directory from the URL. For example, manipulating root, clever use of try_files or a rewrite.

Possibly the most obvious is this:

root /var/www/foo;  location / {     root /var/www/foo/static;     try_files $uri /index.php; }  location ~ \.php$ { ... } 

so that nginx looks in the static folder for normal files, but the parent folder for .php files.

What you were trying to achieve was something like this:

root /var/www/foo;  location / {     try_files /static$uri /index.php; }  location ~ \.php$ { ... } 

which will prefix /static to any URI before testing for existence. The /index.php must be the last element as it required processing in a different location. See this document for more.