nginx rule - match all paths except one

Question

I am trying to match all paths that begin with /newsletter/ except one (/newsletter/one) with a regex. What I have so far:

   location ~ ^/newsletter/(.*)$ {
// configuration here
}

This matches all the paths that begin with /newsletter/.

How do I make an exception for the path /newsletter/one ?

Answer 1

I ended up using the following solution:

location ~ ^/newsletter/(.*)$ {
    location ~ /newsletter/one(.*) {
           // logic here
    }
    // logic here
}

This matches all the paths under /newsletter/* and then I match all the paths that begin with /newsletter/one and apply the configuration for the newsletter/one in the inner configuration block while I keep the rest of the configuration in the outer configuration block.

Answer 2

This works but has one flaw. It will also not match on "one" followed by any characters.

location ~ ^/newsletter/(?!one).*$ {
    //configuration here
}

Although, this may be better:

location = /newsletter/one {
    // do something (not serve an index.html page)
}

location ~ ^/newsletter/.*$ {
    // do something else
}

This works because when Nginx finds an exact match with an = it uses that location to serve the request. One problem is that this will not match if you are using an index page because the request is rewritten internally and so will match the second location "better" and use that. See the following: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding-nginx-server-and-location-block-selection-algorithms#matching-location-blocks

There is a section which explains how Nginx chooses which location to use.

Answer 3

To clarify Tim's answer the following would work, allowing you to match on /newsletter/one-time but still skip /newsletter/one

location ~ ^/newsletter/(?!one$).*$

Also, if you want ignore case in your match, use the ~* modifier in place of ~

Answer 4

Use negative match, like this:

    location ~* \.(php|png)/(?!(topic|news)) {
        return 410; # Gone
        break;
    }

This allows to emit a 410 Gone HTTP code except for the URIs with "topic" and "news" after the script name and a slash. This is handy if you want to prevent PHP scripts run by default but keep a whitelist of "safe" URIs that do actually require parameters in form of extra URI path.

Answer 5

Here's the one:

^/newsletter(/&/[^o][^n][^e])$