Nginx regex for a specific location

Question

I have a proxy_pass for a backend, but in this context, I should serve some static files that are stored in a directory. I`ve tried this:

server {
    listen 8180;
    location ~ ^/Backend?.(gif|jpg|png|jpeg|pdf|xls|xlsx)$ {
        root /data/images;
    }
    location /Backend {
        proxy_pass http://docker-conciliador;
    }
}

But when I try the URL /Backend/12345.jpg for example it didn`t work.

How can I make a regex for a specific location having this location a proxy_pass too???

Answer 1

You regex ^/Backend?.(gif|jpg|png|jpeg|pdf|xls|xlsx)$ is incorrect and would match things like:

• /BackendAgif
• /BackenBjpg

Because ? stands for "match once or none" so it really reads as "d" or none. The dot . is for any one single character.

Correct would be:

    location ~ ^/Backend/.*\.(gif|jpg|png|jpeg|pdf|xls|xlsx)$ {
        root /data/images;
    }

There, .* is for any character, none or any number. The \. is dot (escaped).