Question
DNS Networking redirects with Nginx to catch wildcards
- Posted May 18, 2017
- NetworkingDNSNginxUbuntu 16.04
What i want to do:
- Have two versions of the site, mobile and desktop.
- Force naked URI, no www visible and redirect to appropriate mobile/desktop version.
- Wildcard to catch all other gibberish and redirect to appropriate mobile/desktop version.
Desktop version: mysite.com Mobile version: m.mysite.com
/etc/nginx/sites-available/mysite.com
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name www.mysite.com;
return 301 http://mysite.com;
}
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/mysite.com/html;
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name mysite.com;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
}
/etc/nginx/sites-available/m.mysite.com
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name www.m.mysite.com;
return 301 http://m.mysite.com;
}
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/m.mysite.com/html;
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
server_name m.mysite.com;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
}
What I have so far
-
mysite.com --> mysite.com (GOOD)
-
www.mysite.com --> mysite.com (GOOD)
-
test.mysite.com --> mysite.com (GOOD)
-
test.www.mysite.com --> mysite.com (GOOD)
-
www.test.mysite.com --> mysite.com (GOOD)
-
m.mysite.com/ --> http://m.mysite.com/ (GOOD)
-
www.m.mysite.com --> m.mysite.com (GOOD)
-
test.m.mysite.com --> mysite.com (WRONG), should redirect to m.mysite.com
-
test.www.m.mysite.com --> mysite.com (WRONG), should redirect to m.mysite.com
-
www.test.m.mysite.com --> mysite.com (WRONG), should redirect to m.mysite.com
-
test.m.test.mysite.com -> m.mysite.com (GOOD)
So i’ve mostly got it working, except there seems to be some issue with the wildcard redirects for the mobile version. I’d appreciate any help/feedback.
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When it comes to DNS WildCards, you’ll need to set them up using an A entry, which would look like:
A * DROPLET_IP
or
A *.m DROPLET_IP
The first DNS entry catches anything at the first level – www, test, forum.domain.com, etc. The second works much like the first, though it catches anything targeting m.domain.com, so:
test01.m.domain.com
test02.m.domain.com
etc
With NGINX, you would then specify the WildCard in the server_name, for example:
server_name domain.com www.domain.com *.domain.com
or
server_name m.domain.com www.m.domain.com *.m.domain.com;
The * entry tells NGINX to handle the WildCard requests, but it will only do so if the DNS is properly setup as noted above. Without the WildCard DNS, NGINX won’t handle the requests as expected.
