Using nginx try_files with multiple directory trees

Solution 1:

You will need to use a regular expression location to capture the part of the URI following /images/. Then use try_files to test a series of URIs using each site prefix.

For example:

location ~ ^/images/(.*)$ {
    root /path/to/docroot/images;
    try_files /siteA/$1 /siteB/$1 /siteC/$1 =404;
}

You could inherit the value of root from the surrounding block, in which case adjust the parameters to try_files appropriately.

Solution 2:

As an alternative to the accepted answer you can use a named location (@my_path for example) to fallback in a other location, for example :

location / {
    root /etc/nginx/static;
    try_files $uri @index;
}

location @index {
    root /srv/http;
    try_files $uri $uri.html /index.html =404;
}