nginx how to proxy_pass all requests expect one directory?

Question

What I'm trying to do is that all incoming requests shall be handled by my Angular application. But one directory is for a REST-api that have to be excluded.

My current nginx config locks like this:

location /rest {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /rest/index.php$is_args$args;
}

location ~ / {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:4000;
}

The above config always responds with the http://127.0.0.1:4000. The REST api itself seems to work, because when I disable the location ~ / the REST is called and returns content. So what I would like to achieve is:

https://SERVER       -> http://127.0.0.1:4000
https://SERVER/xyz   -> http://127.0.0.1:4000
...
https://SERVER/rest  -> http://127.0.0.1/rest

How can do a proxy forward off all requests but not if a specific directory is given?

Answer 1

What I would first try is to modify the first rule as:

location ^~ /rest {...

According to the info here: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding-nginx-server-and-location-block-selection-algorithms

This should ensure that the sercond block is not encoutered if the first matches:

If the longest matching prefix location has the ^~ modifier, then Nginx will immediately end its search and select this location to serve the request.