Node.js: directory listing with nginx

If you don't have special design requirements, then the best way to handle directory listing in Node.js is nginx.

You can create the following directory structure with a special directory for listing:

• /home/username
  • /app
  • /www
    • /listing

Now we have to instruct nginx to redirect all the requests to our app by using a proxy directive. Note that our special directory is not under the control of Node.js because we didn't specify a route to handle that particular path. It's up to nginx to handle it.

        

server {
   server_name my.app;
   listen 80;

   root /home/username/www;
   index index.html index.htm;


  location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }

    location /listing {
      autoindex on;
    }
}