Why URL manipulation handles routing in Nginx - Test Your Understanding

Practice - 5 Tasks

1fill in blank

easy

Complete the code to rewrite the URL path to /home.

Nginx

rewrite [1] /home break;

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

A^/oldpath$

B/oldpath$

C/oldpath

D^oldpath$

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Omitting the ^ and $ causes partial matches.

Missing the leading slash in the pattern.

The rewrite directive uses a regular expression to match the URL path. The caret (^) and dollar ($) signs mark the start and end of the string, so ^/oldpath$ matches exactly the path /oldpath.

2fill in blank

medium

Complete the code to redirect all requests from /old to /new permanently.

Nginx

return [1] /new;

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

A302

B301

C404

D500

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using 302 instead of 301 causes temporary redirect behavior.

Using 404 or 500 causes errors instead of redirect.

HTTP status code 301 means permanent redirect. It tells browsers and search engines that the resource has moved permanently to the new URL.

3fill in blank

hard

Fix the error in the location block to match URLs starting with /app.

Nginx

location [1] {
    proxy_pass http://backend;
}

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

A^/app/

B~ /app

C/app

D^/app

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using /app matches unintended paths like /appfoo.

Using ~ /app treats it as a regex but without anchors.

The location directive with ^/app/ matches URLs that start exactly with /app/. The caret (^) means start of string, and the trailing slash ensures it matches the directory path.

4fill in blank

hard

Fill both blanks to create a map that sets $target to /index.html if $uri is /, else $uri.

Nginx

map $uri $target {
    [1] /index.html;
    [2] $uri;
}

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

A"/"

B"/index.html"

Cdefault

D~^/

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using regex (~) instead of exact string match.

Missing the default case causes errors for other URLs.

The map directive matches the exact string "/" to /index.html. The default keyword sets $target to $uri for all other cases.

5fill in blank

hard

Fill all three blanks to rewrite URLs starting with /blog to /posts and set permanent redirect.

Nginx

location [1] {
    rewrite [2] /posts/$1 [3];
}

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

A^/blog/

B^/blog/(.*)$

C/posts/$1

Dpermanent

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Omitting the capture group causes loss of path info.

Using 'break' instead of 'permanent' does not redirect.

The location block matches URLs starting with /blog/. The rewrite uses regex ^/blog/(.*)$ to capture the rest of the path and rewrites it to /posts/$1. The permanent flag sends a 301 redirect.