How to use Nginx to 301 Redirect 200k+ Urls

Question

I've been trying to figure this out for hours and have to throw in the towel. I'm used to using htaccess. I'm not receiving any error messages when reloading nginx, but none of my sample redirects are working. Instead of being redirected I'm seeing 404 codes. Domain is hosted using Cloudpanel, which automatically installs everything. A Vhost config file is editable in the backend system. That reads directly from /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/www.example.com.conf

I need to redirect a lot of url's.

old - https://www.example.com/category/oldpost

new- https://www.example.com/category/new-post (the hyphen matters)

Server Specs

• Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS
• Nginx 1.21.4
• Plenty of cpu/ram

My vhost file (everything is default except the first line)

include /etc/nginx/redirects.map;
server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
  {{ssl_certificate_key}}
  {{ssl_certificate}}
  server_name example.com;
  return 301 https://www.example.com$request_uri;
}

server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
  {{ssl_certificate_key}}
  {{ssl_certificate}}
  server_name www.example.com www1.example.com;
  
  {{root}}

  {{nginx_access_log}}
  {{nginx_error_log}}

  if ($scheme != "https") {
    rewrite ^ https://$host$uri permanent;
  }
 
  location ~ /.well-known {
    auth_basic off;
    allow all;
  }

  {{settings}}

  location ~/\.git {
    deny all;
  }

  location ~/(wp-admin/|wp-login.php) {
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
    proxy_max_temp_file_size 0;
    proxy_connect_timeout      7200;
    proxy_send_timeout         7200;
    proxy_read_timeout         7200;
    proxy_buffer_size          128k;
    proxy_buffers              4 256k;
    proxy_busy_buffers_size    256k;
    proxy_temp_file_write_size 256k;
  }

  location / {
    {{varnish_proxy_pass}}
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_hide_header X-Varnish;
    proxy_redirect off;
    proxy_max_temp_file_size 0;
    proxy_connect_timeout      720;
    proxy_send_timeout         720;
    proxy_read_timeout         720;
    proxy_buffer_size          128k;
    proxy_buffers              4 256k;
    proxy_busy_buffers_size    256k;
    proxy_temp_file_write_size 256k;
  }

  location ~* ^.+\.(css|js|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|gz|svg|svgz|ttf|otf|woff|woff2|eot|mp4|ogg|ogv|webm|webp|zip|swf|map)$ {
    # WordPress Multisite Subdirectory
    rewrite ^/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/wp-.*) $1 break;
    rewrite ^/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/.*\.php)$ $1 break;
    add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*";
    expires max;
    access_log off;
  }

  if (-f $request_filename) {
    break;
  }
}

server {
  listen 8080;
  listen [::]:8080;
  server_name www.example.com www1.example.com;
  {{root}}

  try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
  index index.php index.html;

  location ~ \.php$ {
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    try_files $uri =404;
    fastcgi_read_timeout 3600;
    fastcgi_send_timeout 3600;
    fastcgi_param HTTPS "on";
    fastcgi_param SERVER_PORT 443;
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:{{php_fpm_port}};
    fastcgi_param PHP_VALUE "{{php_settings}}";
  }

  # WordPress Multisite Subdirectory
  if (!-e $request_filename) {
    rewrite /wp-admin$ https://$host$uri permanent;
    rewrite ^/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/wp-.*) $1 last;
    rewrite ^/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/.*\.php)$ $1 last;
  }

  if (-f $request_filename) {
    break;
  }
  }

nginx.conf (a few new entries towards the top that took me a while to figure out)

user root;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
worker_rlimit_nofile 8192;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;

events {
    worker_connections 2000;
    # multi_accept on;
}

http {
    ## My new Entries
    map_hash_max_size 2048;
    map_hash_bucket_size 128;
    ##
    
    ##
    # Basic Settings
    ##

    geoip_country /etc/nginx/geoip/GeoIP.dat; # the country IP database
    geoip_city    /etc/nginx/geoip/GeoLiteCity.dat; # the city IP database

    real_ip_recursive on;

    set_real_ip_from 127.0.0.1;
    set_real_ip_from 10.0.0.0/8;
    set_real_ip_from 172.16.0.0/12;
    set_real_ip_from 192.168.0.0/16;
    set_real_ip_from 0.0.0.0/0;
    #real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For;

    log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                    '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                    '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    log_format cloudflare '$http_cf_connecting_ip - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                          '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                          '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    sendfile on;
    tcp_nopush on;
    tcp_nodelay on;

    client_body_buffer_size  1K;
    client_header_buffer_size 1k;
    client_max_body_size 64M;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;
    server_tokens off;
    port_in_redirect off;
    access_log off;

    map $scheme $fastcgi_https { ## Detect when HTTPS is used
      default off;
      https on;
    }

    include /etc/nginx/blocked_ips;

    pagespeed off;
    pagespeed XHeaderValue 1;

    ##
    # Security Settings
    ##

    #add_header Strict-Transport-Security 'max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload';
    add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN;
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    #add_header Content-Security-Policy "img-src 'self' data:;";
    add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies master-only;
    add_header Referrer-Policy same-origin;
    #add_header Permissions-Policy "accelerometer=(), ambient-light-sensor=(), autoplay=(), camera=(), encrypted-media=(), fullscreen=(), geolocation=(), gyroscope=(), magnetometer=(), microphone=(), midi=(), payment=(), picture-in-picture=(), sync-xhr=(self 'https://haveibeenpwned.com/' 'https://twofactorauth.org/%27), usb=(), vr=()";

    ##
    # SSL Settings
    ##

    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_session_cache builtin:1000 shared:SSL:10m;
    ssl_session_timeout 10m;
    ssl_ciphers EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_stapling on;
    ssl_stapling_verify on;
    ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/ssl/dhparams.pem;

    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    ##
    # Logging Settings
    ##

    access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

    ##
    # Limit the requests for php
    ##

    limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=limit:10m rate=1r/s;

    ##
    # Gzip Settings
    ##

    gzip on;
    gzip_disable "msie6";
    gzip_vary on;
    gzip_proxied any;
    gzip_comp_level 8;
    gzip_buffers 16 8k;
    gzip_http_version 1.1;
    gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript image/png image/gif image/jpeg application/javascript image/svg+xml;

    ##
    # Brotli Settings
    ##

    brotli on;
    brotli_comp_level 8;
    brotli_static on;
    brotli_types text/plain text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript image/png image/gif image/jpeg application/javascript image/svg+xml;

    ##
    # Virtual Host Configs
    ##
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*.conf;
    
}

redirects.map (I've tried every variation in the redirects.map file, but none work )

map $request_uri $new_uri {
    default "";
    /category/oldpost1                 /category/new-post1;
    /oldpost2                          /old-post2;
    /https://www.example.com/oldpost3  /https://www.example.com/old-post3;
}    

No idea where to go from here. I really want to get this to work server side because I can't imagine using a wordpress plugin.

Answer 1

It seems you are looking for location. https://www.example.com/category/category/new-post would serve the https://www.example.com/category/oldpost

location /category/new-post {
    proxy_pass https://www.example.com/category/oldpost;
}

A more common use is if the folder structure changed (well usually you reverse this to make old links work with new folder structure.

location /category/new-posts/ {
    proxy_pass https://www.example.com/category/oldpost/;
}

Worst case you have to jump down the rabbithole and rewrite the pages on the fly.. https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/nginx-rewrite-url-rules