Converting subdomain to path component without redirect?

Server NGINX
1

Hello guys,

Am having trouble setting up my nginx.config to transparently proxy the
subdomains and domains to the same app, but with different “path
components” appended to the $uri

example:
mydomain.it/PATH should return ~> mydomain.com/it/PATH

using regexp:
(www.)?mydomain.(it|jp|es|de) to return my
http://app_server/$2/$request_uri

My idea is to proxy the “localised server_name” to the “default
server_name” without letting the user know ( no browser redirect ).

This is my “working” nginx.config ( without the rukes ):

This is my last unsuccessful attempt: trying multiple server blocks on nginx - Pastebin.com

any input is highly appreciated

thanks a lot,
peace

2

*i meant: This is my “working” nginx.config ( without the rewrite rules
):

3

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:02:35PM +0100, henrique matias wrote:

Hi there,

Am having trouble setting up my nginx.config to transparently proxy the
subdomains and domains to the same app, but with different “path
components” appended to the $uri

Frequently, the main problem is that the back-end application makes it
very hard to do this.

I suggest you test first using a separate server{} block for one
server_name and demonstrate to yourself that it can work.

After that, you can worry about the details of how to auto-handle the
extra domains.

Something like (untested):

server {
server_name www.mydomain.it;
location / {
proxy_pass http://app_server/it/;
}
}

maybe with “proxy_set_header Host www.mydomain.com;”, or whatever your
application needs.

The important things to check are, do links in the returned content work
when the browser asks for “/dir/” but the app_server gets a request for
“/it/dir/”?

The above is almost the same as what you have here:

This is my last unsuccessful attempt: trying multiple server blocks on nginx - Pastebin.com

but there’s an extra “/” in the proxy_pass line; and as you’ve not said
in what way yours was unsuccessful, it’s hard to suggest a specific fix.

Compare the output of “curl -i http://www.mydomain.com/it/SOMETHING”
with the output of “curl -i mydomain.it”, and with
what you expect the output to be.

f

Francis D. [email protected]

4

My first try was to change my location / { } to proxy pass to another
language, so i could try “the backend” as you said, but it actually
didn’t
work, i got:

[emerg] “proxy_pass” cannot have URI part in location given by regular
expression, or inside named location, or inside “if” statement, or
inside
“limit_except” block in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:79

my nginx version is 1.3.15.

will keep trying, if someone knows how to work this around, would be
cool,
i guess this happens quite often :stuck_out_tongue:

[s]

5

Also i tried adding the address to the try_files:

try_files $uri $uri @app/de/; and try_files $uri $uri @app/de;

but that didn’t work either.

The way i managed to provide translated content, was using a rewrite
inside
of my location block: rewrite ^(.*)$ /my-language/$1 break;

That solves part of my problem.

The core basic of my problem is “Rewrite the URL based on the “server
name””.

So far the only options i see on nginx are:

  1. Have a configuration with one “if” and one “rewrite” in order to map
    server name to path

  2. Multiple server declarations sharing the same configuration (
    probably
    using some sort of include? )

What you reckon? Any suggestion ?

6

On Sun, May 05, 2013 at 02:21:58AM +0100, henrique matias wrote:

My first try was to change my location / { } to proxy pass to another
language, so i could try “the backend” as you said, but it actually didn’t
work, i got:

[emerg] “proxy_pass” cannot have URI part in location given by regular
expression, or inside named location, or inside “if” statement, or inside
“limit_except” block in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:79

Unless I’m missing something, that configuration should not lead to that
error message.

The new test server{} block should be very small, with every line
understood.

If you show exactly what you did, what you got, and what you expected
to get, others will have a better chance of offering help.

f

Francis D. [email protected]

7

Hello Francis, thanks a lot for your help and words.

Sorry if at some point i didn’t make something clear.

Starting from scratch,

  1. My backend already works, http://my_ip/#{language_code}/anything will
    bring “anything” translated to the specified language.

  2. Changing the line 40 on my config: trying multiple server blocks on nginx - Pastebin.com from
    proxy_pass http://app_server;
    to
    proxy_pass http://app_server/de/;

brings me the error: Starting nginx: nginx: [emerg] “proxy_pass” cannot
have URI part in location given by regular expression, or inside named
location, or inside “if” statement, or inside “limit_except” block in
/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:121
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

Regarding: Module ngx_http_map_module :
Sounds like the way to go in order to map domian/subsomains to values (
:

Regarding: Module ngx_http_proxy_module

I tried using the “unix:socket” format, in my case:

proxy_pass http://unix:/tmp/.sock:/it/

as the example in the page you sent, and got the same error.

Thanks a lot for your tips, it definitely helped me to understand it
better.

So far the best solution i can see is using map in order to map the
addresses to “language codes”, and then execute the rewrite.

peace

8

On Mon, 2013-05-06 at 00:14 +0100, henrique matias wrote:
[snip]

brings me the error: Starting nginx: nginx: [emerg] “proxy_pass”
cannot have URI part in location given by regular expression, or
inside named location, or inside “if” statement, or inside
“limit_except” block in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:121
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

…so take it out of the named location??

Steve

–
Steve H. BSc(Hons) MIITP

Skype: sholdowa

9

Hello Steve, yeah i took out ( :

Everything is working fine!

now am starting to dig the cache module, so my backend doesnt get called
too many times in a short period of time…

thanks a lot guys for all your help ( :

10

On Sun, May 05, 2013 at 02:38:17AM +0100, henrique matias wrote:

Hi there,

Also i tried adding the address to the try_files:

try_files $uri $uri @app/de/; and try_files $uri $uri @app/de;

but that didn’t work either.

Unless you also added new named locations like “@app/de/”, I’d expect
that to return HTTP 500.

That’s a more specific problem report than “didn’t work”.

The core basic of my problem is “Rewrite the URL based on the “server
name””.

So far the only options i see on nginx are:

  1. Have a configuration with one “if” and one “rewrite” in order to map
    server name to path

http://nginx.org/r/map

Set a (possibly empty) variable called (say) $path_prefix, and then use
that in your rewrite or proxy_pass line.

Note that using a variable in proxy_pass has other requirements too:

http://nginx.org/r/proxy_pass

  1. Multiple server declarations sharing the same configuration ( probably
    using some sort of include? )

Can work, if the shared configuration is truly the same.

What you reckon? Any suggestion ?

I still think that until you demonstrate that your back-end works with
this, the rest is not useful.

Test one thing at a time, and keep the configuration simple.

f

Francis D. [email protected]