Python Flask – How to Serve Static Files Using Nginx

flasknginxpython

I've a web application with this structure:

|
|__ static
   |__style.less
   |__images
|__ myapp.py
|__ wsgi.py

I've managed to run the web application using nginx and wsgi, but the problem is that the static files are not served, i mean, the server can't find them when i go to their URL. It gives me 404.

Here's my nginx configuration file part:

 server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;

    root /var/www/public_html;
    index index.php index.html index.htm;

    server_name xxxxxxx.com;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    location /myapp {
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_pass unix:/var/www/public_html/myapp/myapp.sock;
}

Is there something missing?

Best Answer

Add this to your nginx configuration

location ^~ /static/  {
    include  /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    root /project_path/;
}

replace /project_path/ with your app's absolute path, you should note that it doesn't include static directory and all the contents inside /project_path/static/ will be serverd in url /static/.

Related Solutions

Python Flask – How to Serve Static Files

url_for just returns, precisely, the URL for that file. It sounds like you want to redirect to the URL for that file. Instead, you are just sending the text of the URL to the client as a response.

from flask import url_for, redirect

@app.route('/')
def home():
    return redirect(url_for('static', filename='hi.html'))

Flask Static Files – How to Serve Static Files in Flask

In production, configure the HTTP server (Nginx, Apache, etc.) in front of your application to serve requests to /static from the static folder. A dedicated web server is very good at serving static files efficiently, although you probably won't notice a difference compared to Flask at low volumes.

Flask automatically creates a /static/<path:filename> route that will serve any filename under the static folder next to the Python module that defines your Flask app. Use url_for to link to static files: url_for('static', filename='js/analytics.js')

You can also use send_from_directory to serve files from a directory in your own route. This takes a base directory and a path, and ensures that the path is contained in the directory, which makes it safe to accept user-provided paths. This can be useful in cases where you want to check something before serving the file, such as if the logged in user has permission.

from flask import send_from_directory

@app.route('/reports/<path:path>')
def send_report(path):
    return send_from_directory('reports', path)

Do not use send_file or send_static_file with a user-supplied path. This will expose you to directory traversal attacks. send_from_directory was designed to safely handle user-supplied paths under a known directory, and will raise an error if the path attempts to escape the directory.

If you are generating a file in memory without writing it to the filesystem, you can pass a BytesIO object to send_file to serve it like a file. You'll need to pass other arguments to send_file in this case since it can't infer things like the file name or content type.

Best Answer

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Python Flask – How to Serve Static Files

Flask Static Files – How to Serve Static Files in Flask

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