nginx: how to get a server for the case of no Host: header?

Question

I've got a special server {} block for the case of people who use an IP address in a host header (server_name ~^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+;) and that works fine. I'd like a different server block for one when no host header at all is provided. I've been testing with:

telnet localhost 80
GET /foobar HTTP/1.0

And I see from my logging (which has "$http_host" in the log_format) this shows up as "-" (hyphen not underscore). But this server block:

server {
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80;

        # hyphen not underscore
        server_name ~^-*$;

        root /var/www/no-host;
        default_type text/plain;
        index foo.ey
        location / {
                try_files $uri /foo.ey;
        }
}

Never gets used, the request instead goes to default which has server_name _; (underscore not hyphen).

My use case is similar to a domain parking site, I want a lot of hostnames to be handled, and all legit ones should be looked up in a database, but I want to screen certain illegitimate ones early.

The answer is in the documentation: http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/server_names.html Search for the word "empty" — Barmar, Aug 30 '18 at 00:24
@Barmar nice answer you got there https://stackoverflow.com/a/52087778, hope you don't mind. — Fabian N., Aug 30 '18 at 01:39
I didn't answer because the question doesn't even belong on this site. — Barmar, Aug 30 '18 at 01:40
@Barmar Oh sry, I went a bit overboard coming from low-quality review queue here, to fix Cupcake quoting you. I didn't even consider that this doesn't belong here (based on the comments). But now with a proper looking answer, can't we just push it over to serverfault? — Fabian N., Aug 30 '18 at 01:44

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 30 '18 at 01:34

1

The answer is in the documentation: https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/server_names.html
Search for the word "empty"

Fix: server_name "";

– Barmar

edited Aug 30 '18 at 01:34

Fabian N.

3,807
2
23
46

answered Aug 30 '18 at 00:37

Cupcake Protocol

661
3
10

nginx: how to get a server for the case of no Host: header?

1 Answers1