Trouble with nginx and serving from multiple directories under the same domain

Question

I have nginx setup to serve from /usr/share/nginx/html, and it does this fine. I also want to add it to serve from /home/user/public_html/map on the same domain. So:

my.domain.com would get you the files in /usr/share/nginx/html
my.domain.com/map would get you the files in /home/user/public_html/map

With the below configuration (/etc/nginx/nginx.conf) it appears to be going to my.domain.com/map/map as noticed by this:

2011/03/12 09:50:26 [error] 2626#0: *254 "/home/user/public_html/map/map/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: <edited ip address>, server: _, request: "GET /map/ HTTP/1.1", host: "<edited>"

I've tried a few things but I'm still not able to get it to cooperate, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

#######################################################################
#
# This is the main Nginx configuration file.  
#
#######################################################################

#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Main Module - directives that cover basic functionality
#----------------------------------------------------------------------

user              nginx;
worker_processes  1;

error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log;

pid        /var/run/nginx.pid;


#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Events Module 
#----------------------------------------------------------------------

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}


#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# HTTP Core Module
#----------------------------------------------------------------------

http {
    include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;
    sendfile        on;
    keepalive_timeout  65;    

    server {
        listen       80;
        server_name  _;
        #access_log  logs/host.access.log  main;

        location / {
            root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
            index  index.html index.htm;
        }

        location /map {
            root   /home/user/public_html/map;
            index  index.html index.htm;
        }

        error_page  404              /404.html;
        location = /404.html {
            root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
        }

        error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
        location = /50x.html {
            root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
        }
    }
    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}

coredump · Answer 1 · 2012-01-26T15:30:04.507

3

The root directive is the problem here. Quote from the doc:

note: Keep in mind that the root will still append the directory to the request so that a request for "/i/top.gif" will not look in "/spool/w3/top.gif" like might happen in an Apache-like alias configuration where the location match itself is dropped. Use the alias directive to achieve the Apache-like functionality.

Basically, only use root for real roots: if the content is to be at / use root. If it's going to end on a subfolder, use alias:

location  /map/ {
  alias  /home/user/public_html/map/;
}

Also check what user nginx is running as and make sure that this user can access /home/user/public_html/map

edited Jan 26 '12 at 15:30

answered Mar 12 '11 at 15:39

coredump

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It shows up properly in access.log now, as /map/, but I still get a 403 forbidden error, public_html/ and every directory under it is 777, and I've tried chowning it to nginx and root, but I still get the 403 error. Any ideas? – Phase Mar 12 '11 at 17:25
@phase well I never had a similar problem, but check [this link](http://derekneely.com/2009/06/nginx-failed-13-permission-denied-while-reading-upstream/) and [this other one](http://serverfault.com/questions/85848/why-is-it-necessary-to-chmod-or-parent-directory-to-fix-403-access-forbidden-err). Looks like lack of permission to read on each directory of the whole *path* you are serving (in your case, home, user, public_html and map). – coredump Mar 12 '11 at 20:00
1

You need to be careful with /s when using alias. The location and alias you posted will strip the / from the request, but the alias doesn't add it back, so a request for /map/foo.html will actually look for /home/user/public_htmlfoo.html. When the location prefix matches the alias suffix, it's easier to use use root /home/user/public_html. You could also fix it by just adding a / onto the end of the alias /home/user/public_html/map/; – kolbyjack Jan 23 '12 at 15:09

Trouble with nginx and serving from multiple directories under the same domain

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