Overcoming "404 Not Found" in Nginx

Question

I have a VPS that was serving static files using Apache. After covering some mileage in Django, I decided to change from Apache to Nginx. I thought it would be a simple matter (eg specifying the root folder for the domain, that settles it). I see that my expectations were unrealistic because now I am getting "404 Not Found" on all paths except the root folder.

mysite.conf:

server {
   listen       [::]:443 ssl;
   listen       443 ssl;
   server_name  share.mysite.com;
   root         /var/www/html/share.mysite.com;
   location    / {
       index index.html index.php;
   }
}

How do I scale this configuration to serve static files located in different folders in the hierarchy?

 1. share.mysite.com/tutorials/a-subject/a.mp4
 2. share.mysite.com/tutorials/another-subject/something.jpg
 3. share.mysite.com/some-folder/somefile.zip

At the moment, any of the above combinations give me a "404 Not Found", all except " https://share.mysite.com ". Yet, the files are there.

I understand that this may involve the " location " keyword but I haven't seen a lucid explanation that translates to my case. I seek understanding. Nginx is new to me.

Answer 1

It is because of the rewritten rules. You had them in place when using Apache as most probably WordPress automatically created a .htaccess file and placed the necessary default rewrite rules for the so-called "pretty" URL ( eg accessing /blog /contact etc. ). In order to do that in Nginx, you have to add a few lines in the vhost for your domain there, please refer to the official documentation for that:

• https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/recipes/wordpress/