Disable caching of a single file with try_files directive

Found a solution using nginx named locations:

location / {    gzip_static on;    try_files $uri @index;}location @index {    add_header Cache-Control no-cache;    expires 0;    try_files /index.html =404;}

Thanks for a great answer Rem! As He Shiming points out with the accepted solution the caching headers don't get added when visiting the root e.g. www.example.com/, but do get added when visiting any deep link, e.g. www.example.com/some/path.

After a lot of digging I believe this is because of the default behaviour of the ngnix module ngx_http_index_module, it includes index.html by default so when visiting the root /, the first location block's rules are satisfied, and index.html gets served without the cache control headers. The workaround I used was to include an index directive without specifying index.html in the first location block, forcing the root / to be served from the second location block.

I also had another problem, I included a root directive in the first location block which broke deep links and is also a bad idea. I moved the root directive to the server level.

Hope this helps, this is my solution...

server {  listen       80;  server_name  localhost;  root   /usr/share/nginx/html;  location / {    add_header X-debug-whats-going-on 1;    index do-not-use-me.html;    try_files $uri @index;                   }  location @index {    add_header X-debug-whats-going-on 2;    add_header Cache-Control no-cache;    expires 0;    try_files /index.html =404;  }}

I've included debug headers to help make it absolutely clear what location block is serving what content. It's also worth noting the unintuitive behaviour of the add_header directive, essential reading if you also intend to add headers to all requests outside of a location block.

location / {  try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;}location = /index.html {  expires -1;}