nginx proxy and backbone pushstate - unix

Question

I'm trying to set up nginx to work with my backbonejs application and api server.
The API server is external and being routed through https://website.com/api/...
Essentially, I want any non-matched urls to be routed to /index.html for the backbone app to handle.
I've tried using try_files, but that just overrides my API. I've tried setting up another location where I check if the request is a GET and also if it doesn't match register or login or api, but that also doesn't work. Here's my server so far:
server {
listen 80; ssl off;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name app.io;
ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/conf/ssl.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/conf/app.key;
root /home/ubuntu/app/public;
access_log /var/log/nginx/app.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/app.error.log;
index index.html;
location / {
if ($scheme = "http") {
rewrite ^ https://$http_host$request_uri? permanent;
}
}
location ~ ^/(api)|(auth).*$ {
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_pass https://app.aws.af.cm;
}
location ~ ^(/(register)|(login)).*$ {
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
# GETs only
limit_except POST {
proxy_pass https://app.aws.af.cm;
}
}
location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$ {
expires max;
add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
}
}
Currently, try_files overrides the API and just redirects to index.html. Any idea how I can get everything to play nicely with one another?
Here's what I want:
if / - /index.html
else if /api/*|/auth/* - external proxy
else if /login|/register - POST - external proxy
else /* - /#$1

Answer 1

Figured it out:
Add try_files #uri #rewrites; to Location / and also add the #rewrites function below.
server {
listen 80; ssl off;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name app.io;
ssl_certificate /opt/nginx/conf/ssl.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /opt/nginx/conf/app.key;
root /home/ubuntu/app/public;
access_log /var/log/nginx/app.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/app.error.log;
index index.html;
location / {
if ($scheme = "http") {
rewrite ^ https://$http_host$request_uri? permanent;
}
try_files $uri #rewrites;
}
location ~ ^/(api)|(auth)|(logout)|(register)|(login).*$ {
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_pass https://app.cm;
}
location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$ {
expires max;
add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
}
location #rewrites {
rewrite ^/.+ /#$uri redirect;
}
}