Yii2 adanced application and nginx configuration (index directive configuration) - nginx

Question

I'm trying to build proper server configuration for nginx serving Yii2 advanced template where backend hosted in a subfolder inside same domain name as frontend.
In this case path_to_yii2 contains whole Yii2 application template and we have these requirements:
path_to_yii2/frontend/web -> should be webroot of / location
path_to_yii2/backend/web -> should be webroot of /backend location
Static content in both folders should be properly served. PHP files should work in both cases.
I wrote and tested such configuration:
server {
listen 80;
server_name localhost;
root <path_to_yii2_application>;
location ~* ^/backend/(.+)$ {
try_files /backend/web/$1 /backend/web/$1/ /backend/index.php?$args;
index /backend/$1/index.php; # not working in case of exact /backend/ request
location ~* ^/backend/(.+\.php)$ {
#fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root/backend/web/$1;
}
}
location / {
try_files /frontend/web/$uri /index.php?$args;
index /$uri/index.php; # not working at all, but / location is served by php even without this line
}
location ~ \.php$ {
#fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root/frontend/web/$fastcgi_script_name;
}
}
And I have some unresolved problems with such configuration. I tested six different options:
FRONTEND:
Static content under / location should be served directly from frontend/web subfolder of yii2 application folder.
Nonexistent content here should be redirected to frontend/web/index.php?$args and served using ~ .php$ location with fastcgi.
Directories under / location should return indexes, if needed served with ~ .php$ location and fastcgi.
BACKEND:
Static content under /backend location should be served directly from backend/web subfolder of yii2 application folder.
Nonexistent content here should be redirected to backend/web/index.php?$argsand served using ~ .php$ location with fastcgi.
Directories under /backend location should return their indexes, if needed served with ~ .php$ location and fastcgi.
I have troubles with directories and their indexes (3 and 6).
First of all, directories for frontend section not working at all, seems that index /$uri/index.php; is wrong for some reason.
Secondly, directories for backend working except exact /backend/ url. Nginx doesn't serve index directive in =/backend/ case.
As a temporarily workaround for backend I added few lines for this exact url:
location = /backend {
return 301 https://$server_name/backend/index.php;
}
location = /backend/ {
return 301 https://$server_name/backend/index.php;
}
How to fix these indexes correctly and what I'm doing wrong?
P.S. There are some similar questions, like Migrating Yii2 from Apache to Nginx - failed on backend app (doesn't provide correct answer, recommends using subdomain) and Nginnx config for Yii 2 Advanced App Template (suggested to move backend content inside yii2 application to frontend folder). I believe that nginx configuration is a proper way of congiguring yii2-application template.
There is also https://github.com/mickgeek/yii2-advanced-one-domain-config repositary which not works in nginx > 1.8.1.
Interesting that apache just needs a symbolic link to make this work. Nginx before 1.8.1 too.
Yii2 application template can be git cloned from here: https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2-app-advanced.git