How to add both CORS headers and Browser expired header in same conf

Question

I need to add both expires headers AND allow cors in nginx

If I add

location ~*  \.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf|x-html|css|xml|js|woff|woff2|ttf|svg|eot)$ {
expires 30d;}

then the expired headers work fine.

If I add

location ~* \.(ogg|ogv|svg|svgz|eot|otf|woff|mp4|ttf|css|rss|atom|js|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|ppt|tar|mid|midi|wav|bmp|rtf|html|txt|htm)$ {
    if ($request_method = 'OPTIONS') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        #
        # Custom headers and headers various browsers *should* be OK with but aren't
        #
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        #
        # Tell client that this pre-flight info is valid for 20 days
        #
        add_header 'Access-Control-Max-Age' 1728000;
        add_header 'Content-Type' 'text/plain charset=UTF-8';
        add_header 'Content-Length' 0;
        return 204;
    }
    if ($request_method = 'POST') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    }
    if ($request_method = 'GET') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    }
}

then the CORS works fine.

But if I add them both together like this, then only the expired headers works and the cors stops working.

location ~*  \.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf|x-html|css|xml|js|woff|woff2|ttf|svg|eot)$ {
expires 30d;}

location ~* \.(ogg|ogv|svg|svgz|eot|otf|woff|mp4|ttf|css|rss|atom|js|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|ppt|tar|mid|midi|wav|bmp|rtf|html|txt|htm)$ {
    if ($request_method = 'OPTIONS') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        #
        # Custom headers and headers various browsers *should* be OK with but aren't
        #
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        #
        # Tell client that this pre-flight info is valid for 20 days
        #
        add_header 'Access-Control-Max-Age' 1728000;
        add_header 'Content-Type' 'text/plain charset=UTF-8';
        add_header 'Content-Length' 0;
        return 204;
    }
    if ($request_method = 'POST') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    }
    if ($request_method = 'GET') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '$http_host';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    }
}

What is wrong with above combination? How can I fix it?

I think it may be todo with having the same location twice, but I need guidance as to how to merge the tw parts together in same location, or create another location so that the result is as intended. All help really appreciated — ChrisMatthewsNZ, Feb 16 '17 at 19:34
You just need to find out the extensions which need to have both headers, and either one of those headers, and then make appropriate location blocks. That is, three `location` blocks total. — Tero Kilkanen, Feb 16 '17 at 21:13

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

The best answer in terms of the most efficient way to solve the problem you have is in my experience the one provided by Phillip -Zyan K Lee-Stockman.

However, to answer your specific question and to help you understand how the location blocks work in NGINX, I have amended your code. I have essentially created two location blocks, each applies to different file types. The first I have created to match the file types you wished to apply expired headers too this has instruction to send expires headers along with the same CORS code that you used. The second location block is used solely for the other file types you wanted to add CORS headers too, but did not want the expires headers added. As each location block contains different file types there is no problem with NGINX choosing one or the other, and this achieves your goal.

However unless your using a very old version of NGINX (prior to 1.7.9, dec 2014) this method is unnecessarily cumbersome, usually it's better to use the http map module, as suggested in the answer I refer to above.

 location ~*  \.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf|x-html|css|xml|js|woff|woff2|ttf|svg|eot)$ {
expires 30d;

if ($request_method = 'OPTIONS') {
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
    #
    # Custom headers and headers various browsers *should* be OK with but aren't
    #
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    #
    # Tell client that this pre-flight info is valid for 20 days
    #
    add_header 'Access-Control-Max-Age' 1728000;
    add_header 'Content-Type' 'text/plain charset=UTF-8';
    add_header 'Content-Length' 0;
    return 204;
}
if ($request_method = 'POST') {
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
}
if ($request_method = 'GET') {
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
    add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
}          }
location ~* \.(ogg|ogv|svg|svgz|eot|otf|mp4|rss|atom|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|ppt|tar|mid|midi|wav|bmp|rtf|html|txt|htm)$ {

    if ($request_method = 'OPTIONS') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        #
        # Custom headers and headers various browsers *should* be OK with but aren't
        #
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        #
        # Tell client that this pre-flight info is valid for 20 days
        #
        add_header 'Access-Control-Max-Age' 1728000;
        add_header 'Content-Type' 'text/plain charset=UTF-8';
        add_header 'Content-Length' 0;
        return 204;
    }
    if ($request_method = 'POST') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    }
    if ($request_method = 'GET') {
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
        add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'DNT,X-CustomHeader,Keep-Alive,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Content-Range,Range';
    }
}

I hope this helps.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 17 '17 at 10:03

nginx evaluates locations on a specific pattern, which is described in its manual.

in summary: on the first match it stops, as you inserted similar locations twice, it evaluates them from top to bottom and stops after the first location that matches (which depending on the file type you choose for testing incidentally was the expire location).

Have a look at the http headers module which might solve your problem using http map module and the mime type:

map $sent_http_content_type $expires {
    default         off;
    application/pdf 42d;
    ~image/         max;
}

expires $expires;

so you would have only the location for CORS and a map for the content types you need to expire after 30d.

How to add both CORS headers and Browser expired header in same conf

2 Answers2