How to follow HTTP redirects inside nginx?

Solution 1:

Here is the full example of what worked for me:

server {
    ...

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://backend;
        # You may need to uncomment the following line if your redirects are relative, e.g. /foo/bar
        #proxy_redirect / /;
        proxy_intercept_errors on;
        error_page 301 302 307 = @handle_redirect;
    }

    location @handle_redirect {
        set $saved_redirect_location '$upstream_http_location';
        proxy_pass $saved_redirect_location;
    }
}

Solution 2:

I believe you want the variable $upstream_http_location.

Variables that begin with $proxy* control what goes from nginx to the upstream. The $upstream* series of variables contains information about the response that nginx itself receives. You can get any aribitrary HTTP header received from an upstream server with $upstream_http_headername.

Note that these $upstream variables cannot be anything but null until the response is received from the upstream server, so there are some limitations on their use.