simple conf for a static site on heroku using nginx with this buildpack: https://github.com/neilmiddleton/heroku-buildpack-nginx. File structure: app/conf/nginx.conf.erb app/conf/mime.types app/html/index.html

1 - nginx.conf.erb

worker_processes  4;
daemon            off;

events {
  worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    sendfile    on;
    tcp_nopush  on;
    keepalive_timeout  30;
    gzip  on;

    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

     server {
      server_name  localhost;
      listen       <%= ENV['PORT'] %>;
      root  <%= ENV['HOME'] %>/html;
      index  index.html;
    }
}

2 - mime.types

# this file is used by the nginx.conf

types {
    text/html                             html htm shtml;
    text/css                              css;
    text/xml                              xml rss;
    image/gif                             gif;
    image/jpeg                            jpeg jpg;
    application/javascript                js;
    application/atom+xml                  atom;

    text/cache-manifest                   manifest appcache;
    text/mathml                           mml;
    text/plain                            txt;
    text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor      jad;
    text/vnd.wap.wml                      wml;
    text/x-component                      htc;

    image/png                             png;
    image/svg+xml                         svg svgz;
    image/tiff                            tif tiff;
    image/vnd.wap.wbmp                    wbmp;
    image/webp                            webp;
    image/x-icon                          ico;
    image/x-jng                           jng;
    image/x-ms-bmp                        bmp;

    application/java-archive              jar war ear;
    application/mac-binhex40              hqx;
    application/msword                    doc;
    application/pdf                       pdf;
    application/postscript                ps eps ai;
    application/rtf                       rtf;
    application/vnd.ms-excel              xls;
    application/vnd.ms-powerpoint         ppt;
    application/vnd.wap.wmlc              wmlc;
    application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml         xhtml;
    application/x-chrome-extension        crx;
    application/x-cocoa                   cco;
    application/x-java-archive-diff       jardiff;
    application/x-java-jnlp-file          jnlp;
    application/x-makeself                run;
    application/x-perl                    pl pm;
    application/x-pilot                   prc pdb;
    application/x-rar-compressed          rar;
    application/x-redhat-package-manager  rpm;
    application/x-sea                     sea;
    application/x-shockwave-flash         swf;
    application/x-stuffit                 sit;
    application/x-tcl                     tcl tk;
    application/x-x509-ca-cert            der pem crt;
    application/x-xpinstall               xpi;
    application/zip                       zip;

    application/octet-stream              bin exe dll;
    application/octet-stream              deb;
    application/octet-stream              dmg;
    application/octet-stream              iso img;
    application/octet-stream              msi msp msm;
    application/octet-stream              safariextz

    audio/midi                            mid midi kar;
    audio/mpeg                            mp3;
    audio/x-realaudio                     ra;
    audio/ogg                             oga ogg;

    video/3gpp                            3gpp 3gp;
    video/mpeg                            mpeg mpg;
    video/ogg                             ogv;
    video/quicktime                       mov;
    video/webm                            webm;
    video/x-flv                           flv;
    video/x-mng                           mng;
    video/x-ms-asf                        asx asf;
    video/x-ms-wmv                        wmv;
    video/x-msvideo                       avi;

    application/vnd.ms-fontobject         eot;
    font/truetype                         ttf;
    font/opentype                         otf;
    font/woff                             woff;
}

3 - index.html

<h1>hello world.</h1>