Configure Nginx to direct traffic to http or https based on URL - nginx

Question

I am using Nginx for a website which also exposes API's.
I want to add an SSL certificate to the website and:
direct all website traffic to https (443)
but keep all the API calls going to http (80)
All the API traffic is unique in that it calls a URL with api after the site name:
www.example.com/api/...
I am hoping this can be done with a combination of Nginx server/location blocks. So something like the following:
# http
server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
# direct all api traffic (www.example.com/api/) via http
location /api/ {
root /full_path_to_api_code # '/api/' location value will be appended
}
# redirect all non api traffic to https block
location / {
return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}
}
# https
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
ssl_certificate www.example.com.crt;
ssl_certificate_key www.example.com.key;
...
}
I am hoping the 'location /api/' block catches all the api calls and just lets them pass through unchanged as it were. Maybe there is better way to do this?
I would appreciate if anyone can tell me if this is possible and if this is the right way to go about it?

Answer 1

Your config is good. The only thing you can change is combine them into same block if you are ok someone calling the api on http or https. Then you can do it like below
# http
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
ssl_certificate www.example.com.crt;
ssl_certificate_key www.example.com.key;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
# direct all api traffic (www.example.com/api/) via http
location /api/ {
root /full_path_to_api_code
}
# redirect all non api traffic to https block
location / {
if ($scheme ="http") {
# redirect all non api traffic to https block
return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}
normal https request processing
}
}
I would still go with your config, the reason being if is evil