What is the difference between the directives root and alias in nginx "on the fingers"?

Question

Nginx

Good afternoon. I don’t understand a little, what is the difference between alias and root in nginx? Do they actually do the same thing? When is it better to use root and when alias?

Answer 1

Not really.
They do the same thing only for location /.
If you have, for example, location /img, then when the
root /var/wwwlink /img/1,jpg will lead to the file /var/www/img/1.jpg
and when alias /var/wwwthe same link will lead to /var/www/1.jpg.