Nginx and unix user directories

Question

Is it possible to configure nginx so that domain/~user is proxied to a port set aside for that user.

Then the user can run another instance of nginx or unicorn on that port.

Is that possible? I would like a database which controls the user to port number relationship though.

Answer 1

You could use a combination of nginx map and rewrite modules. You would need a script to generate the map configuration out of the database, though.

The target configuration would look like this:

map $uri $new {
  default        http://www.domain.com/;
  include        /path/to/usermap.txt; 
}

server {
  server_name   www.domain.com;
  rewrite  ^    $new   redirect;
}

With /path/to/usermap.txt being generated by a script with an output similar to this:

# automatically generated by a script
/~alice          http://www.domain.com:8001/;
/~bob            http://www.domain.com:8002/;
/~chuck          http://www.domain.com:8003/;