How to redirect a URL in Nginx

Question

I need to redirect every http://test.com request to http://www.test.com. How can this be done.

In the server block I tried adding

rewrite ^/(.*) http://www.test.com/$1 permanent;

but in browser it says

The page isn't redirecting properly

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

My server block looks like

 server {
            listen       80;
            server_name  test.com;
            client_max_body_size   10M;
            client_body_buffer_size   128k;

            root       /home/test/test/public;
            passenger_enabled on;
            rails_env production;

            #rewrite ^/(.*) http://www.test.com/$1 permanent;
            #rewrite ^(.*)$ $scheme://www.test.com$1;

            error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
            location = /50x.html {
                    root   html;
            }
    }

The official documentation is at: http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/converting_rewrite_rules.html — Marcello Nuccio, May 16 '17 at 23:51

score 292 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 18 '17 at 02:21

292

Best way to do what you want is to add another server block:

server {
        #implemented by default, change if you need different ip or port
        #listen *:80 | *:8000;
        server_name test.com;
        return 301 $scheme://www.test.com$request_uri;
}

And edit your main server block server_name variable as following:

server_name  www.test.com;

Important: New server block is the right way to do this, if is evil. You must use locations and servers instead of if if it's possible. Rewrite is sometimes evil too, so replaced it with return.

edited Feb 18 '17 at 02:21

coffeemakr

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answered Apr 24 '12 at 18:29

Dmitry Verhoturov

5,835
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20

You could also end that server block with `return 301 http://wwww.test.com$request_uri;` instead of the rewrite. – RCCola Feb 14 '13 at 01:17
6

ditto @RCCola on using `return` instead of `rewrite`. See [docs](http://wiki.nginx.org/Pitfalls#Taxing_Rewrites) – JCotton Aug 07 '13 at 03:06
Question, how should the server blocks be ordered? the `redirect` then the `main server` block or `main server` block then the `redirect`? Because I have the same problem, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35451929/nginx-redirecting-non-www-to-www-with-request-uri-does-not-work – jhnferraris Feb 17 '16 at 10:54
Nginx config in mentioned question is correct, order does not matter. – Dmitry Verhoturov Feb 19 '16 at 18:16
5

Just a quick warning: Watch out for the `301` redirect vs the `302`. You could be stuck with a cached permanent redirect, which makes it very troublesome to change your settings for clients that have already accessed a URL. (I know the OP asked for a `301`, but be sure that's really what you want.) – Nick Merrill Feb 21 '16 at 17:35

score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 26 '13 at 18:17

Similar to another answer here, but change the http in the rewrite to to $scheme like so:

server {
        listen 80;
        server_name test.com;
        rewrite     ^ $scheme://www.test.com$request_uri? permanent;
}

And edit your main server block server_name variable as following:

server_name  www.test.com;

I had to do this to redirect www.test.com to test.com.

score 18 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 26 '20 at 18:12

18

This is the top hit on Google for "nginx redirect". If you got here just wanting to redirect a single location:

location = /content/unique-page-name {
  return 301 /new-name/unique-page-name;
}

answered Feb 26 '20 at 18:12

Seph Reed

8,797
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Amal Kumar S · Answer 4 · 2012-04-24T10:20:33.250

First make sure you have installed Nginx with the HTTP rewrite module. To install this we need to have pcre-library

How to install pcre library

If the above mentioned are done or if you already have them, then just add the below code in your nginx server block

  if ($host !~* ^www\.) {
    rewrite ^(.*)$ http://www.$host$1 permanent;
  }

To remove www from every request you can use

  if ($host = 'www.your_domain.com' ) {
   rewrite  ^/(.*)$  http://your_domain.com/$1  permanent;
  }

so your server block will look like

  server {
            listen       80;
            server_name  test.com;
            if ($host !~* ^www\.) {
                    rewrite ^(.*)$ http://www.$host$1 permanent;
            }
            client_max_body_size   10M;
            client_body_buffer_size   128k;

            root       /home/test/test/public;
            passenger_enabled on;
            rails_env production;

            error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
            location = /50x.html {
                    root   html;
            }
    }

How to redirect a URL in Nginx

4 Answers4

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