How to set correct content-type for apple-app-site-association file on Nginx/Rails

Question

In order to set up universal links for an iOS app, I have created an apple-app-site-association file, and placed it in the /public directory of my Rails app.

I can curl it at the correct address, but it returns the wrong content type. Instead of application/json or application/pkcs7-mime it returns application/octet-stream , as you can see in the response here:

curl -i https://example.com/apple-app-site-association

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.10.1
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Content-Length: 245
Last-Modified: Mon, 21 Nov 2016 12:45:00 GMT
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000

{
  "applinks": {
    "apps": [],
    "details": [
      {
        "appID": "APPPREFIX.com.mycompany.app",
        "paths": [
          "/home*"
        ]
      }
    ]
  }

I am attempting to specify a Content-Type in the nginx configuration:

/etc/nginx/sites/sites-available/sitename: 

server {
   ...
   location /apple-app-site-association {
      default_type application/pkcs7-mime;
   }
}

I have saved this change and restarted nginx. This doesn't make any difference to the response from curl. I've also tried location /public/apple-app-site-association {} and a few other variations, to no effect.

What is the correct way to set up nginx to deliver this file with the correct content type?

Answer 1

Add in nginx:

location ~ /.well-known/apple-app-site-association {
         default_type application/pkcs7-mime;
 }

Answer 2

The above didn't work for me but thought I'd post here in case it helps anyone else. I needed apple-app-site-association to be application/json so changed the filename to apple-app-site-association.json then added this to .htaccess within /.well-known

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /.well-known/

# iOS
RewriteRule ^apple-app-site-association$ apple-app-site-association.json [NC,L] 

Answer 3

This worked for me within .htaccess:

<FilesMatch "apple-app-site-association">
    ForceType application/json
</FilesMatch>

Answer 4

It turns out the nginx configuration file described two servers, and I was adding the location snippet to the wrong one.

When I added it to the correct one and reloaded nginx, the file was returned with the expected content-type:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.10.1
Content-Type: application/pkcs7-mime
Content-Length: 245

{
"applinks": {
"apps": [],
"details": [
  {
    "appID": "APPPREFIX.com.mycompany.app",
    "paths": [
      "/home*"
    ]
  }
]

}

Answer 5

In my case, I'd create a separate nginx for "apple-app-site-association"

1. locate this file to /usr/share/nginx/html/apple-app-site-association and in /usr/share/nginx/html/.well-known/apple-app-site-association

2. edit, /etc/nginx/nginx.conf and set default_type application/json;

3. that is it.

to test it,

4. curl -i localhost/apple-app-site-association

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx/1.19.3 Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2020 13:34:00 GMT Content-Type: application/json Content-Length: 198 Last-Modified: Fri, 23 Oct 2020 13:54:03 GMT Connection: keep-alive ETag: "5f92e07b-c6" Accept-Ranges: bytes

   { "applinks": { "apps": [], "details": [ { "appID": "APPPREFIX.com.mycompany.app", "paths": [ "*" ] } ] } }