Nginx-Location-Blöcke & Anfragezuordnung

A real site serves many paths differently: static files, an API, an admin area. Location blocks let Nginx apply different rules per URL path.

A location block matches a request URI and contains directives for it.

By default a location is a prefix match: location /blog matches /blog, /blog/post, and anything starting with it.

The = modifier requires an exact URI. It is fast and great for hot paths like the health endpoint or homepage.

Use ~ for case-sensitive and ~* for case-insensitive regular expressions, handy for file extensions.

Nginx does not just pick the first match. Order of precedence:

• = exact match wins immediately
• ^~ prefix stops regex search
• regex (~/~*) in file order
• longest plain prefix as fallback

^~ means: if this prefix is the longest match, use it and skip regex checking. Useful to protect a static directory from regex rules.

Among plain prefixes, the longest match is chosen, not the first listed. /api/v2 beats /api for a request to /api/v2/users.

Location blocks commonly route to backends. Different paths can proxy to different upstreams.

Locations can nest inside others, and named locations (@name) are jumped to internally, often for fallbacks like try_files.

When a request hits the wrong block, check: is there an exact or ^~ match stealing it? Is a regex matching unexpectedly? Reload and test with curl -v.

Test your location matching knowledge.

You learned Nginx location matching:

• Prefix match is the default; = is exact
• Regex uses ~ and ~*
• Priority: exact, then ^~, then regex, then longest prefix
• Longest prefix wins among plain matches
• Named locations enable fallbacks; test with nginx -t and reload