Nginx: setting the error page to a static file - nginx

Question

I have the following nginx configuration:
server {
listen 80;
server_name default;
location / {
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/;
}
}
When the internal service at http://127.0.0.1:8080/ is not responding nginx return a 502 Bad Gatway error.
My question: how can I configure nginx to returning a static html file, e.g. /var/www/error.html, when such error occurs?
What I tried
Taking a cue from here I tried this:
server {
listen 80;
server_name default;
location / {
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/;
}
error_page 404 502 /error.html;
location = /error.html {
internal;
root /var/www;
}
}
It's working fine if the service (on the port 8080) is down, but when the service is up and I try to access the url /error.html nginx match the last location (returning me the static file) and I would like to avoid it.

Answer 1

Well, if you really don't want to expose error page, you could use named location.
server {
listen 80;
server_name default;
location / {
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/;
# probably you also need this
# proxy_intercept_errors on;
}
error_page 404 502 #error;
location #error {
root /var/www;
try_files /error.html /error.html;
}
}