nginx proxy on domain only

Question

I have setup a server block with a proxy in nginx which works when I hit the service with an a directory.

For example I can access gs.geolytix.net/geoserver with this conf.

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name gs.geolytix.net;
  location /geoserver {
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_pass http://138.68.137.90:8080/geoserver;
  }
}

So far so good. What I would like to achieve though is that I get to the same address but only address gs.geolytix.net in the browser. Without a directory. If I change the location to / alone I go to gs.geolytix.net the response is gs.geolytix.net//

Thanks, Dennis

Answer 1

If you want the root URI / to quietly map to /geoserver, then a simple method is with an internal rewrite:

location = / {
    rewrite ^ /geoserver last;
}

EDIT: If you want an external rewrite, use the same location block with a return statement:

location = / {
    return 302 /geoserver;
}

The location directive is documented here. The rewrite and return directives are documented here.

Answer 2

You can do this by having a "URI" in the proxy_pass, which acts a sort of implicit rewrite:

location / {
    # Note the "/" at the end of the proxy_pass, this will cause it to 
    # replace the location block (/ in this case) with "/geoserver/"
    # when talking to origin.
    # So gs.geolytix.net/test becomes 138.68.137.90:8080/geoserver/test
    proxy_pass http://138.68.137.90:8080/geoserver/;
}