Why static file serving is the primary use case in Nginx - Test Your Understanding

Practice - 5 Tasks

1fill in blank

easy

Complete the code to serve static files from the /var/www/html directory.

Nginx

location / {
    root [1];
}

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A/usr/share/nginx/html

B/etc/nginx/html

C/home/user/html

D/var/www/html

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using a directory that does not exist or is not accessible by nginx.

Confusing root with alias.

The root directive sets the directory from which static files are served. /var/www/html is the standard directory for static content.

2fill in blank

medium

Complete the code to enable index file serving for static content.

Nginx

location / {
    root /var/www/html;
    [1] index.html index.htm;
}

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

Aindex

Bautoindex on;

Cindex on;

Dautoindex off;

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using autoindex instead of index to serve default files.

Adding a semicolon after index keyword incorrectly.

The index directive specifies the default files nginx looks for when a directory is requested.

3fill in blank

hard

Fix the error in the code to correctly serve static files with caching headers.

Nginx

location /static/ {
    root /var/www/html;
    add_header Cache-Control [1];
}

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A"no-cache"

Bno-cache

C"max-age=3600"

Dmax-age=3600

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Not quoting the header value causing nginx to fail to start.

Using incorrect header values that do not control caching.

The add_header directive requires the header value to be in quotes if it contains special characters like '='.

4fill in blank

hard

Fill both blanks to configure nginx to serve static files and disable directory listing.

Nginx

location /files/ {
    root [1];
    autoindex [2];
}

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A/srv/static

Bon

Coff

D/var/www/files

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Setting autoindex to on, which allows directory listing.

Using incorrect directory paths that do not exist.

The root directive sets the directory for static files. autoindex off; disables directory listing for security.

5fill in blank

hard

Fill all three blanks to create a location block that serves static files with gzip compression and caching.

Nginx

location /assets/ {
    root [1];
    gzip [2];
    add_header Cache-Control [3];
}

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A/usr/share/nginx/assets

Bon

C"max-age=86400"

Doff

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Forgetting to enable gzip compression.

Not quoting the Cache-Control header value.

Using wrong directory paths.

Serving static files from /usr/share/nginx/assets with gzip compression enabled (gzip on;) improves speed. Adding caching headers with "max-age=86400" caches files for one day.