Django Middleware to serve a root if no file is found then serve the django, this intended to be use with the $tryfile option in nginx.

middleware.py

from os import path
from django.conf import settings
from django.http import Http404
from django.views import static


class TryStatic:
    def __init__(self):
        self.root = settings.PUBLIC_ROOT
        self.index_file = 'index.html'

    def process_response(self, request, response):
        if not settings.DEBUG:
            return response

        if response.status_code != 404:
            return response  # No need to check for a flatpage for non-404 responses.
        try:
            return self.serve_pathinfo(request, request.path_info)

        # Return the original response if any errors happened. Because this
        # is a middleware, we can't assume the errors will be caught elsewhere.
        except Http404:
            return response
        except Exception:
            if settings.DEBUG:
                raise
            return response

    def serve_pathinfo(self, request, path_info):
        if path_info[-1] == '/':
            path_info = path_info + self.index_file
        return static.serve(request, path=path_info, document_root=self.root, show_indexes=False)

settings.py

PUBLIC_ROOT = '/var/www/html'