Question

I would like to configure nginx so that

1. The requested path is a static file, serve it;
2. otherwise redirect an external domain: http://example.net/.

I do understand that I need to use the try_files directive, but I do not understand how to implement the fallback mechanism.

Answer 1

Found after many tests. What happens if a static file is not found is defined in the last parameter of try_files. You can set that parameter to an internal location. In my case I used

server {
    ...

    root    /srv/example.org/web/static;
    index   index.html;

    try_files $uri @redirect-to-dot-net;

    location @redirect-to-dot-net {
        rewrite ^ http://example.net redirect;
    }
}