Problem Statement: nginx does not seem to redirect when the original request is to a non-existent location. All other redirects seem to work fine. It's also possible that php is not executing the script on the redirected page. nginxconf is provided below.
Question: What am I missing and what do I need to do to make this work? Is it possible that nginx doesn't support redirecting from a page that doesn't exist?
Some context may be helpful: Here is a typical request being redirected:
73.234.24.22 - - [30/May/2022:16:15:05 +0000] "GET /postevent3.asp?dta=05%2f30%2f22%2016%3a15%3a22%20507%20%2b149642656%20%2d254084882%20%2d0001787%20682829361 HTTP/1.1" 302 154 "-" "-"
Note that no page is displayed for this request; the request is dumped into a buffer, processed, and written to the database. See the end of this article for an excerpt from the nginx debug log.
Changing the URL is impractical as there are dozens of units scattered around the world. Most devices cannot be updated remotely.
The original site is no longer in use, using apache. The current site uses nginx. I'm not very familiar with web servers, so I'm probably missing something obvious. All ideas will be appreciated.
I also tried the following in the port 80 server block:
location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /data/submit_legacy.php?$query_string; }
nginxconf file------------------------------------------------ -- ----------------------------------------
server { listen 80; listen [::]:80; root /var/www/example.org; server_name example.org www.example.org ; index index.php index.html index.htm; expires -1; rewrite_log on; error_log /var/www/example.org/data/http-org-submit.log debug; #=# ========================================================================= #=# #=# Intercept request for postevent3.asp and send it data/submit_legacy.php, #=# #=# be sure to change to return 301 when testing is complete #=# #=# ========================================================================= #=# location = /postevent3.asp { return 302 https://example.org/data/submit_legacy.php?$query_string; } location / { return 302 https://$host$request_uri; } } server { listen [::]:443 ssl http2; # managed by Certbot listen 443 ssl http2; # managed by Certbot root /var/www/example.org; server_name example.org www.example.org; index index.php index.html index.htm; expires -1; rewrite_log on; error_log /var/www/example.org/data/https-org-submit.log debug; location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args; } location ~ \.php$ { include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf; fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; } ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.org/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.org/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypta/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains"; add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN; add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff; client_max_body_size 100M; }
Extracted from nginx debug file:--------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- ---
2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 write new buf t:1 f:0 000055BC271BE300, pos 000055BC271BE300, size: 390 file: 0, size: 0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http write filter: l:0 f:0 s:390 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http output filter "/postevent3.asp?dta=05%2f30%2f22%2017%3a35%3a32%20564%20%2b188886495%20%2b025481359%20%2b0005990%20570742577" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http copy filter: "/postevent3.asp?dta=05%2f30%2f22%2017%3a35%3a32%20564%20%2b188886495%20%2b025481359%20%2b0005990%20570742577" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 image filter 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 xslt filter body 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http postpone filter "/postevent3.asp?dta=05%2f30%2f22%2017%3a35%3a32%20564%20%2b188886495%20%2b025481359%20%2b0005990%20570742577" 000055BC271BE5D0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 write old buf t:1 f:0 000055BC271BE300, pos 000055BC271BE300, size: 390 file: 0, size: 0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 write new buf t:0 f:0 0000000000000000, pos 000055BC260A7AC0, size: 92 file: 0, size: 0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 write new buf t:0 f:0 0000000000000000, pos 000055BC260A7E20, size: 62 file: 0, size: 0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http write filter: l:1 f:0 s:544 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http write filter limit 0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 writev: 544 of 544 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http write filter 0000000000000000 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http copy filter: 0 "/postevent3.asp?dta=05%2f30%2f22%2017%3a35%3a32%20564%20%2b188886495%20%2b025481359%20%2b0005990%20570742577" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http finalize request: 0, "/postevent3.asp?dta=05%2f30%2f22%2017%3a35%3a32%20564%20%2b188886495%20%2b025481359%20%2b0005990%20570742577" a:1, c:1 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 set http keepalive handler 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http close request 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http log handler 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 free: 000055BC271E7D10, unused: 10 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 free: 000055BC271BDE40, unused: 1875 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 free: 000055BC2719E1B0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 hc free: 0000000000000000 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 hc busy: 0000000000000000 0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 tcp_nodelay 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 reusable connection: 1 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 event timer add: 32: 65000:84579871 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 http keepalive handler 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 malloc: 000055BC2719E1B0:1024 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 recv: eof:1, avail:-1 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 recv: fd:32 0 of 1024 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [info] 37669#37669: *1 client 93.181.63.177 closed keepalive connection 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 close http connection: 32 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 event timer del: 32: 84579871 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 reusable connection: 0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 free: 000055BC2719E1B0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *1 free: 000055BC271E7B00, unused: 136 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http header: "Host: www.example.org" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http header done 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 event timer del: 32: 84575067 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 generic phase: 0 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 rewrite phase: 1 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 test location: "/" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 test location: "postevent3.asp" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 using configuration "=/postevent3.asp" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http cl:-1 max:1048576 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 rewrite phase: 3 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http set discard body 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http script copy: "https://example.org/data/submit_legacy.php?" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http script var: "dta=10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A24%2000096%20%2B204823178%20%2B089853375%20%2B0008360%20634488566%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A27%2000096%20%2B204823175%20%2B089853369%20%2B0008402%20392294994%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A31%2000096%20%2B204823170%20%2B089853326%20%2B0008462%20215533034%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A32%2000096%20%2B204823166%20%2B089853317%20%2B0008472%20020574633%20%0D%0A" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http finalize request: 302, "/postevent3.asp?dta=10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A24%2000096%20%2B204823178%20%2B089853375%20%2B0008360%20634488566%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A27%2000096%20%2B204823175%20%2B089853369%20%2B0008402%20392294994%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A31%2000096%20%2B204823170%20%2B089853326%20%2B0008462%20215533034%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A32%2000096%20%2B204823166%20%2B089853317%20%2B0008472%20020574633%20%0D%0A" a:1, c:1 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http special response: 302, "/postevent3.asp?dta=10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A24%2000096%20%2B204823178%20%2B089853375%20%2B0008360%20634488566%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A27%2000096%20%2B204823175%20%2B089853369%20%2B0008402%20392294994%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A31%2000096%20%2B204823170%20%2B089853326%20%2B0008462%20215533034%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A32%2000096%20%2B204823166%20%2B089853317%20%2B0008472%20020574633%20%0D%0A" 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 http set discard body 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 xslt filter header 2022/05/30 17:35:15 [debug] 37669#37669: *2 HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily Server: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu) Date: Mon, 30 May 2022 17:35:15 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 154 Connection: keep-alive Location: https://example.org/data/submit_legacy.php?dta=10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A24%2000096%20%2B204823178%20%2B089853375%20%2B0008360%20634488566%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A27%2000096%20%2B204823175%20%2B089853369%20%2B0008402%20392294994%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A31%2000096%20%2B204823170%20%2B089853326%20%2B0008462%20215533034%20%0D%0A10%2F14%2F02%2017%3A35%3A32%2000096%20%2B204823166%20%2B089853317%20%2B0008472%20020574633%20%0D%0A Expires: Mon, 30 May 2022 17:35:14 GMT Cache-Control: no-cache
If my guess that the software making this request cannot interpret the 302 HTTP redirect code and make a new request is correct, then your only recourse is to handle the request within the HTTP block itself. instead of your current
You can check this configuration:
If you use this configuration, your requests will start showing up in the database, which definitely means my initial guess was correct.