Setting Nginx to catch all unhandled vhosts

Question

If I already have a bunch of virtualhosts, how can I create a virtual host to handle requests that don't match any of the virtualhosts? (i.e. access by IP, another domain linking to IP, .etc .etc)

Answer 1

server_name _; and default_server on the listen configuration are what you are looking for.

Example:

server {

   listen 80 default_server;
   server_name _;

   root /var/www/default; (or wherever)    

}

Answer 2

If you use SSL, then you need some extra plumbing for a default_server - certificate and key (that can be self-signed).

server {
    server_name _;
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen 443 ssl default_server;
    ssl_certificate <path to cert>;
    ssl_certificate_key <path to key>;
    return 404; # or whatever
}

Nginx will try to accept SSL connection on an IP/port-matching default_server. If such server is missing cert/key, nginx will drop the connection. It won't try other servers. So don't forget cert/key.

Answer 3

server {
  listen 80 default_server;
  listen 443 ssl default_server;
  listen [::]:80 default_server;
  listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;

  server_name _;
  root /path/to/default;
}

The entries are for port 80 (HTTP), port 443 (HTTPS), port 80 IPv6, and port 443 IPv6, respectively.

You could consider adding log_not_found off; to avoid adding a log entry for the page not being found.

Answer 4

In the event that you have listen directives with explicit IPs listed, you will need to also include these same IPs in your default block's listen directive.

server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen 10.0.0.10:80 default_server;
    server_name _;
}

server {
    listen 10.0.0.10:80;
    server_name foo.example.com;
}

Without the listen 10.0.0.10:80 default_server directive in the default block, foo.example.com would be served for http://10.0.0.10 even if 10.0.0.10 is your default IP address.