NGINX try_files Directive: Handling Fallbacks and Routing Requests

The 'try_files' directive in NGINX is used to specify a set of files that NGINX will attempt to serve in a specified order. It is commonly used for handling fallbacks or routing requests to different files or locations.

The syntax of 'try_files' directive is as follows:

try_files file1 [file2 ...] uri;

Here, 'file1', 'file2', etc. are the files that NGINX will attempt to serve in the specified order. If none of the files are found, NGINX will serve the 'uri' specified.

For example, consider the following NGINX configuration:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
}

In this configuration, NGINX will first try to serve the requested file ('$uri'). If the file is not found, it will then try to serve the directory ('$uri/'). If that is also not found, it will finally serve the 'index.html' file.

The 'try_files' directive is commonly used in conjunction with other NGINX features like 'error_page' or 'rewrite' to handle different scenarios and serve the appropriate files or locations.