Help nginx+passenger serve static index pages

gistfile1.sh

# Help nginx+passenger serve static index pages

# Site specific config
server {
  listen 80;
  server_name domain.com;
  index index.html;
  access_log logs/appname.access.log;
  error_log logs/appname.error.log;

  # Check for index pages first
  location / {
    root /home/username/appname/current/public;
    try_files $uri /$uri/index.html @passenger;
  }
  # Okay, there isn't a static index file, so go to passenger
  location @passenger {
    root /home/username/appname/current/public;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto http;
    passenger_enabled on;
  }
}

gistfile2.sh

# nginx.conf

worker_processes  1;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    passenger_root /usr/local/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.02/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15;
    passenger_ruby /usr/local/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.02/bin/ruby;

    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;
    sendfile        on;
    keepalive_timeout  65;
    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    server {
       server_name _;
       return 444;
    }
    include /usr/local/nginx/conf/sites-enabled/*;
}

With Apache+Passenger, the serving of index pages "just works". This definitely required a lot of digging and almost no one had any ideas. Finally on #linode IRC, someone suggested using try_files and there was an example on ServerFault (http://j.mp/cYHGQh) of how to accomplish this for cached pages. But I was just wanting it to work for static pages.

Thanks a bunch for this. I just switched from apache -> nginx and this was just what I needed!

I have a pull request here that fixes this in passenger: phusion/passenger#15

Unfortunately it's been ignored -- haven't been able to even get any feedback about why it isn't accepted.