# Make 1 root file accessible, and serve it for all requests

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/make-1-root-file-accessible-and-serve-it-for-all-requests/246479>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [October 21, 2013, 5:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/make-1-root-file-accessible-and-serve-it-for-all-requests/246479 "2013-10-21T05:58:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sadaf\_N](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/858c86/32.png) [@Sadaf\_N](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Sadaf_N)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 5:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/make-1-root-file-accessible-and-serve-it-for-all-requests/246479/1 "2013-10-21T05:58:49Z")

</div>

I have a version of this working, but I suspect my solution is not the  
best  
one.

Please suggest any improvements I can make to my conf file. I am  
attempting  
to do the following:

1. If any file is requested from the root, we should always serve  
“index.html”. No other file should be accessible, and requesting  
anything  
else should be treated as if you requested “index.html”. Currently I’m  
using rewrite, but a redirect would be okay too, and possibly  
preferable.

2. Any file under “/css” or “/js” can be requested, and requesting files  
from those directories that don’t exist should return a 404.

Here’s my current working conf file:

— BEGIN CODE ----  
server {  
listen 80;  
server\_name [www.example.com](http://www.example.com);  
client\_max\_body\_size 50M;

```
  root /var/www/mysite;

  location = /index.html {
  }

  # map everything in base dir to one file
  location ~ ^/[^/]*$ {
    rewrite ^/[^/]*$ /index.html;
  }

  location ~ ^/css/ {
  }

  location ~ ^/js/ {
  }
}

```

— END CODE ----

Thanks!  
Jonah

Posted at Nginx Forum:

> **[Make 1 root file accessible, and serve it for all requests](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,243881,243881#msg-243881)**
>
> I have a version of this working, but I suspect my solution is not the best one. Please suggest any improvements I can make to my conf file. I am attempting to do the following: 1. If any file is requested from the root, we should always serve...

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jonah](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jonah](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonah)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/make-1-root-file-accessible-and-serve-it-for-all-requests/246479/2 "2013-10-21T07:03:06Z")

</div>

server {  
listen 80;  
server\_name [www.example.com](http://www.example.com);

```
root /var/www/mysite;

location / {
    # Default location, request will fallback here if none other

```

location block matches  
rewrite ^.\*$ / permanent; # Permanent (HTTP 301) redirection to  
‘root’ location ‘/’  
}

```
location = / {
    # 'root' location, will be served by the index directive (which

```

defaults to the ‘index.html’ value)  
# You could also use ‘/index.html’ and thus not using the index  
directive (don’t forget to change the rewrite in previous location  
block)  
}

```
location /css/ {
    # Will serve the corresponding directory. Avoid using regex

```

whenever possible if you can, that’ll hopefully save some CPU  
}

```
location /js/ {
    # Idem as previous block
}

```

}

Note 1:  
Your configuration includes a  
‘client\_max\_body\_size[http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx\_http\_core\_module.html#client\_max\_body\_size](http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#client_max_body_size)’  
directive.  
Its documentation is not very clear as it seems to mix up ‘client  
request  
body size’ with the ‘Content-Length’ HTTP header field which represents  
the  
‘answer body size’, the size of the file sent after the answer header.  
I just checked my own configuration to be sure (I serve files bigger  
than 1  
MiB), but I guess you don’t need this directive to serve any file,  
whatever  
its size.

## Note 2: Check the directives in the parent ‘http’ block to ensure that no ‘autoindex[http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx\_http\_autoindex\_module.html#autoindex](http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_autoindex_module.html#autoindex)’ directive is to be found or if it is, that it is set to ‘off’. When not set, it defaults to ‘off’. Check also there that the ‘index[http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx\_http\_index\_module.html#index](http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_index_module.html#index)’ directive is not set since all you want is the default ‘index.html’ value. You can override it in your server block if you need another value at the ‘http’ block level.

_B. R._

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jonah](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jonah](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonah)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/make-1-root-file-accessible-and-serve-it-for-all-requests/246479/3 "2013-10-21T12:24:31Z")

</div>

B.R.,

Thanks very much! That was incredibly helpful. I had to make a couple  
minor tweaks to get it working, and I wanted a 302 instead of a 301, but  
the  
following is what I ended up with, and it had the added benefit of  
cutting  
response time almost in half when I did a load test:

server {  
listen 80;  
server\_name [example.com](http://example.com);

root /var/www/register;

location = /index.html {  
}

# Default location, request will fallback here if none other

# location block matches

location / {  
rewrite ^.\*$ /index.html redirect; # ‘root’ location ‘/’  
}

location /css/ {  
}

location /js/ {  
}

}

Posted at Nginx Forum:  
[http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,243881,243893#msg-243893](http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,243881,243893#msg-243893)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jonah](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jonah](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonah)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/make-1-root-file-accessible-and-serve-it-for-all-requests/246479/4 "2013-10-21T16:24:44Z")

</div>

I’m glad it helped. Maybe there are still some improvements, I’ll let  
others pointing them out…

You must have good reasons for preferring temporary redirects other than  
permanent ones, but if you really wants to redirect all traffic to the  
index and you don’t serve existing files using their direct URI later,  
using the permanent redirection mechanism takes advantage of the browser  
cache to avoid getting hit with the same request later… Saves bandwith  
+  
requests processing time.

However, if the client is in some way authenticated and may access those  
protected resources later, then that may be a problem indeed… ^^

## I guess you know what you are doing already. Just sayin’.

_B. R._