server-configs-nginx/doc/how-nginx-works.md

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How Nginx works

If you're familiar with any other webserver, some aspects of the way Nginx works can cause confusion. This document aims to highlight differences or features which may trip up new users.

Nginx will only use one location block

A location block (directive) defines the behavior for a given request which matches the location url pattern. The block used is whichever is the most specific for the given request, the rules for precedence can be found in Nginx's documentation.

It is very important when writing nginx configuration files to understand that only one location block will be used by Nginx. When in doubt a useful technique to identify which location block is to add a header:

# Make sure js files are served with a long expire
location ~ /something {
	add_header "section" "something location";

	...
}

location /something-else {
	add_header "section" "something else location";

	...
}

In the headers for a response, the header added from the block which matched will be included:

$ curl -I "http://nginx.h5bp.dev/something"
...
section: something location

There are some significant consequences to this behavior such as it not being possible to build configuration files from small, overlapping, location blocks.

try_files in the server context does not always apply

Consider the following server block:

server {
	listen 80;
	server_name example.com;
	root /var/www/example.com;

	try_files $uri $uri/ /fallback.html;

	location ~ ^/somefolder {
		...
	}

}

It might be expected that a request for http://example.com/somefolder/doesnt-exist would result in the contents of /fallback.html - but this is not the case. the try_files directive in the server context only applies if no location block matches, it is not a default which location blocks inherit.