Mismatch in x-accel and xsendfile docs on trailing slash

[mikehaertl]

There is a minor mismatch on the documentation regarding the trailing slash.

In https://github.com/nginxinc/nginx-wiki/blob/master/source/start/topics/examples/xsendfile.rst a trailing slash is mentioned for alias:

If you want to deliver /some/path/iso.img then configure NGINX like this:

location /protected/ {
  internal;
  alias   /some/path/; # note the trailing slash
}

Whereas on https://github.com/nginxinc/nginx-wiki/blob/master/source/start/topics/examples/x-accel.rst the trailing slash is not mentioned at all:

Example configuration, notice the difference between alias and root.

# Will serve /var/www/files/myfile.tar.gz
# When passed URI /protected_files/myfile.tar.gz
location /protected_files {
  internal;
  alias /var/www/files;
}

This leaves me confused: Do we need the trailing slash or not?

[alessfg]

The tl;dr is that it depends. For the location directive, the trailing slash will determine how the location is matched (e.g. /protected_files will match /protected_files_* but /protected/ will match /protected/ as expected). For the alias directive, I'm going to reference the NGINX docs (https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#alias) and say that the standard is to include a trailing slash, as that explicitly declares that what you want to access is the content inside the given path.

[mikehaertl]

Right, but as I noted above both pages cover exactly the same topic: X-Acel/Xsendfile. And I think they should be consistent in their examples. To the reader it's confusing why the first page explicitely talks about adding the trailing slash (note, that I didn't add the comment after alias in the quote above) and the other page doesn't even mention it.

[alessfg]

I see your point. Feel free to submit a PR to make the change 😄 -- the wiki is fully community supported.

[mikehaertl]

I could but I'm not sure how to fix this :). Actually I was searching for "Xsendfile Nginx" and was directed to the first page. Then from that page a link points to the documentation "in standard format" - which brought me to the second page.

I was expecting to find the usual Nginx documentation (like for alias that you linked) and was surprised to find mostly the same content on the second page - but noticed the difference in how they describe alias.

The main question to me: Why are there two pages at all? And is there an "official" documentation for this feature that could be linked?

[alessfg]

I don't have an answer as to why there are two pages. The most probable scenario is that two people created separate pages at some stage? And no, there is no "official" documentation beyond the standard NGINX headers documentation (https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_headers_module.html).

As far as making a change yourself -- feel free to edit any/both of the two files you linked (xsendfile.rst and x-accel.rst) to make them more consistent/correct.