📁 Static File Serving

Basic Static File Serving

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;

    # root specifies the root directory
    root /var/www/mysite;

    # Default index files
    index index.html index.htm;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

root vs alias Difference

# root: accessing /images/logo.png → looks for /var/www/html/images/logo.png
location /images/ {
    root /var/www/html;
}

# alias: accessing /images/logo.png → looks for /var/www/static/logo.png
location /images/ {
    alias /var/www/static/;
}

💡 Tip: 💡 Easy way to remember: root means "append to the existing path," alias means "completely replace."

Enabling Gzip Compression

Gzip is like vacuum-packing a file — the transfer size shrinks, speed increases.

http {
    gzip on;                          # Enable gzip
    gzip_vary on;                     # Add Vary header
    gzip_min_length 1024;             # Don't compress anything smaller than 1KB
    gzip_comp_level 6;                # Compression level 1-9 (6 is the best balance)
    gzip_types
        text/plain
        text/css
        text/javascript
        application/json
        application/javascript
        application/xml
        image/svg+xml;
}

Cache Control

# Static asset caching (CSS, JS, images)
location ~* \.(css|js|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico|svg|woff2)$ {
    expires 30d;                      # Cache for 30 days
    add_header Cache-Control "public, no-transform";
    access_log off;                   # Disable logging (reduces disk I/O)
}

# HTML files — no caching (ensures users always see the latest version)
location ~* \.html$ {
    expires -1;
    add_header Cache-Control "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate";
}