# German Umlauts (äöü) in Url dont work

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/german-umlauts-aou-in-url-dont-work/209901>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [July 25, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/german-umlauts-aou-in-url-dont-work/209901 "2011-07-25T23:04:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![luislavena](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/0ea827/32.png) [@luislavena](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/luislavena)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/german-umlauts-aou-in-url-dont-work/209901/1 "2011-07-25T23:04:01Z")

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Hello,

I am using nginx 1.0.5 on debian squeeze. A domain with an german umlaut  
‘ä’ wont work. Can someone give me a little help how to solve this  
problem?

Tanks

Akunin

Posted at Nginx Forum:

> **[German Umlauts (äöü) in Url dont work](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,212929,212929#msg-212929)**
>
> Hello, I am using nginx 1.0.5 on debian squeeze. A domain with an german umlaut 'ä' wont work. Can someone give me a little help how to solve this problem? Tanks Akunin

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**Author:** ![akunin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@akunin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/akunin)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/german-umlauts-aou-in-url-dont-work/209901/2 "2011-07-25T23:14:37Z")

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German umlauts are not allowed in domains. If you use an umlaut-domain  
it  
is encoded as an IDN-domain (see here:  
[Internationalisierter Domainname – Wikipedia](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalizing_Domain_Names_in_Applications))  
so dmin.example becomes xn–dmin-moa0i.example. The umlaut is converted  
by the browser that sends the IDN-name to nginx.

Hendrik

Am Mo, 25.07.2011, 23:03 schrieb akunin:

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**Author:** ![akunin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@akunin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/akunin)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/german-umlauts-aou-in-url-dont-work/209901/3 "2011-07-27T18:57:40Z")

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On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 05:45:37PM +0200, Joost Molenaar wrote:

> > A domain with an german ‘’ wont work.
> 
> This[1] wiki article should explain it. You could try to use encoded  
> domain name in nginx config files.  
> ([bratwrst.de](http://bratwrst.de) ↔ [bratwürst.de](http://xn--bratwrst-b6a.de))
> 
> Regards,  
> Joost Molenaar
> 
> [1][Internationalized domain name - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name)

Yes, IDN should be set in server\_name:

```
server_name xn--bratwrst-b6a.de; # bratwrst.de

```

You can search in Goolge “IDN converter” for online services such as:

[http://mct.verisign-grs.com](http://mct.verisign-grs.com)  
[https://www.centralnic.com/names/domains/idn/converter](https://www.centralnic.com/names/domains/idn/converter)

–  
Igor S.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![akunin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@akunin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/akunin)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2011, 5:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/german-umlauts-aou-in-url-dont-work/209901/4 "2011-07-27T17:46:32Z")

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> A domain with an german ‘ä’ wont work.

This[1] wiki article should explain it. You could try to use encoded  
domain name in nginx config files.  
([bratwürst.de](http://xn--bratwrst-b6a.de) ↔ [bratwürst.de](http://xn--bratwrst-b6a.de))

Regards,  
Joost Molenaar

[1] [Internationalized domain name - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name)