Nginx config file only working for ''/"

Question

I am setting up nginx as a sort of static file server. For some reason it is only working when I go to 123.123.123.123/ or 123.123.123.123. However, when I go to 123.123.123.123/static/content/ or 123.123.123.123/static/content/another.mp3 it returns a 404 not found. Here is the config file that is located in /etc/nginx/sites-available and linked to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled. I am really stumped as to why it is not working.

Any pointers or tips would be appreciated.

server {
    listen 123.123.123.123:80;
    server_name "";

     location / {
         root /srv/homepage;
         index  index.html;
     }

     location /static/content/ {
         root /srv/static/content;
         index  song.mp3;
     }

}

Answer 1

If you look in your error log, you'll see that a request for 123.123.123.123/static/content/another.mp3, nginx will look for /srv/static/content/static/content/another.mp3. This is due to the way that the root directive works in nginx. When using root, nginx will append the request uri path to the given root, so you'll get one /static/content from the root directive, and another from the request. The correct approach is to just set your root to /srv:

location /static/content/ {
  root /srv;
  index song.mp3;
}

Since all requests handled by this location will start with /static/content, it will only server files out of /srv/static/content.