Error with config when upgrading from 0.6.34 to 0.7.59 (the "alias" directive must use captures inside location given by regular expression)

[Igor Sysoev]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:37:58PM +0100, Jools Wills wrote:

> I got an error
> 
> the "alias" directive must use captures inside location given by regular
> expression in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:70
> 
> Quite a confusing message for me. The line in question.
> 
> alias /home/$homedir/public_html/;
> 
> which comes from
> 
> # For requests starting with a tilde, break them into three components:
> # 1. The username, everything after the tilde up to the first slash
> # 2. The file location, everything after the username up to the last
> slash
> # 3. The trailing slash(es)
> # Then, rewrite to go to the f~/ branch.
> location /~ {
>     if ($request_uri ~ ^/~([^/]*)(/.*[^/]|)(/*)$) {
>         set $homedir $1;
>         set $filedir $2;
>         set $trailingslashes $3;
>         rewrite ^/~([^/]*)(/|$)(.*)$ f~/$3;
>     }
> }
> 
> # Here, the user-directory components have been parsed. Use an alias to
> set
> # the file directory prefix. But if the file at the requested URI is a
> # directory, we jump to the ~/ branch for additional processing.
> location f~/ {
>     alias /home/$homedir/public_html/;
>     if (-d /home/$homedir/public_html$filedir) {
>         rewrite ^f~/(.*) ~/$1;
>     }
> }
> 
> # Here, the request is for a directory in a user's home directory. We
> check
> # that the request URI contained trailing slashes. If it did not, then
> we
> # add the slashes and send a redirect. This circumvents Nginx's faulty
> # internal slash-adding mechanism.
> location ~/ {
>     autoindex on;
>     alias /home/$homedir/public_html/;
>     if ($trailingslashes = "") {
>         rewrite .* /~$homedir$filedir/ redirect;
>     }
> }
> 
> (this code comes from this blog http://blog.sbf5.com/?p=6)
> 
> Any ideas what this new error means. Seems related to a "new" feature
> added in 0.7.40.

You should use just:

  locaiton ~ ^/~([^/]+)(/?.*)$) {
      alias /home/$1/public_html/$2;
      autoindex on;
  }


-- 
Igor Sysoev
http://sysoev.ru/en/