Problem when using subfolder

[Maxim Dounin]

Hello!

On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 08:52:32AM -0800, Bill Culp wrote:

> ngnix docs state that the closest match will always be found in location phrases
> 
> So why is alias needed?

Normally (with root specified) nginx constructs file name as 
<root> + <uri>.  This allows to specify root at any level, and it 
will work without surprises via configuration inheritance.  I.e. 

    root /path/to;

    location /foo/ {
        # ...
    }

and

    location /foo/ {
        root /path/to;
    }

and even

    location /foo/ {
        ...
        location /foo/bar {
            root /path/to;
        }
    }

all will result in a "/foo/bar.txt" request being mapped into 
a "/path/to/foo/bar.txt" file.

In contrast, alias replaces part of the URI matched by a location, 
and file name will be <alias> + <uri-part-not-matched>.  This is 
more fragile as things change as you move the alias directive to 
another place, but allows to map URI to file system if some parts 
of the URI needs to be modified, e.g. in configuration like

    location /foo/ {
        alias /path/to/baz/;
    }

request to "/foo/bar.txt" will be mappend into 
"/path/to/baz/bar.txt" file.

It is generally recommended to use "root", except in situations 
like thread starter has, i.e. when URI needs to be modified when 
mapping to a file system.

See here for docs:

http://nginx.org/r/root
http://nginx.org/r/alias

[...]

-- 
Maxim Dounin
http://nginx.com/support.html