Csdrhrt

I'm trying to setup a home web-server.

My folder structure is the following:

/home/pi/www/

├── homeGUI

│   ├── backend /* Contains an express server listening on 8080 */

│   ├── frontend /* Contains an Angular application */

│   │   ├── index.html

│   │   └── /* Other .js files */

│   └── scripts

└── index.html

while my site configuration is this one:

server{

    listen 80;

    listen [::]:80;



    root /home/pi/www;



    index index.html index.htm;



    server_name _;



    #intended to serve the angular application

    location /homeGUI/ {

        alias /home/pi/www/homeGUI/frontend/;

        try_files $uri $uri/ /homeGUI/frontend/index.html; #this one is causing problems

    }



    #intended to serve the files in the www folder

    location / {

        try_files $uri $uri/ index.html;

    }



    #intended to serve the express server

    location /homeGUI/api/ {

        proxy_pass  http://127.0.0.1:8080

    }

}

The configuration above can serve all 3 contents(the static index.html, the angular application and the express server).

The problem I have is when i navigate to a route of the angular application directly (or by refreshing the page while on that route) (es: localhost/homeGUI/route1) this cause a redirect cycle because it tries to redirect to /homeGUI/frontend/index.html which then falls into the same location rule and cycle.

All I want to accomplish is redirect every request like /homeGUI/* to the /home/pi/www/homeGUI/frontend/index.html file with the exception of /homeGUI/api which should go to the express server on port 8080.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.

The last element of your try_files statement should be the URI.

The URI for the file at /home/pi/www/homeGUI/frontend/index.html is /homeGUI/index.html and not /homeGUI/frontend/index.html.

See this document for details.

For example:

location /homeGUI/ {

    alias /home/pi/www/homeGUI/frontend/;

    try_files $uri $uri/ /homeGUI/index.html;

}

The above may work, but using alias and try_files in the same block can cause problems due to this issue.

You can replace your try_files statement with default behaviour and an if block.

For example:

location /homeGUI/ {

    alias /home/pi/www/homeGUI/frontend/;

    if (!-e $request_filename) { rewrite ^ /homeGUI/index.html last; }

}

See this caution on the use of if.