Nginx X-Accel-Redirect not working with node.js

Question

I'm trying to set up authorized file access on nginx backed by node.js. For some reason all the examples don't work for me. I'm trying to server files from `/data/private/files` My nginx configuration: ``` ... server { listen 4000; server_name localhost; location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000/; } location /files { root /data/private; internal; } ``` My node server.js: ``` var http = require('http'); http.createServer(function (req, res) { console.log(req.url); res.end('works'); }).listen(3000); ``` When I request `http://localhost:4000/xyz` then the request is correctly being passed on to node. When I request `http://localhost:4000/files/test.jpg` I just get a 404 and nothing gets passed to node. What am I doing wrong? When I commend out `internal` then test.jpg gets served correctly by nginx directly, so I assume the paths are correct? I'm pretty sure I had this working at some point before but on a different server somewhere maybe with a different node and nginx version. Trie…

Accepted Answer

You misunderstand how `internal` and `X-Accel-Redirect` work.

The main idea is that you go to some URL which is proxied to app. Then app decides whether you should get access to file or not. In former case it response with `X-Accel-Redirect` to protected url (one with `internal`).

So you should go to some other URL, e.g. `http://localhost:4000/get/files/test.jpg` and your application could look like this:

```
var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  if (req.url.indexOf('/get/files/') == 0) {
    if (userHasRightToAccess()) {
      res.setHeader('X-Accel-Redirect', res.url.slice(4));
      res.end('');
    } else {
      // return some error
    }
  } else {
    console.log(req.url);
    res.end('works');
  }
}).listen(3000);
```

Nginx X-Accel-Redirect not working with node.js

Solution

Problem