How to use Nginx alias to load PHP from other directory? - nginx

Question

I want to make a sub directory my on web server, system that serves a backend from another folder for people, but I am having some difficulty.
The server configuration should translate system as index.php of the /srv/www/xxx/backend/web, essentially system should alias to the index of another directory.
I have a configuration like:
location /system {
alias /srv/www/xxx/backend/web;
rewrite ^(.*) /index.php?r=$1;
return 200 $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
try_files $uri =404;
# NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
}
location / {
rewrite /(.*) /index.php?r=$1;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
try_files $uri =404;
# NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
I have tried numerous iterations (including using root), however even though I can get:
return 200 $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
to give me:
/srv/www/xxx/backend/web/index.php
and I have vi'ed into this file to make sure it works when I take out the return wget gives me a 404. I am sure I am missing something really simple.
Can someone help me understand what is wrong?

Answer 1

As location php is nested the /index.php URI is not resolved here but in the last block of your configuration. Due to a long standing bug in nginx alias doesn't work with try_files so you need to use the root/rewrite couple instead. So you can fix this with :
location /system {
root /srv/www/xxx/backend/web;
rewrite ^/system/(.*)$ /$1 break;
try_files $uri /system/index.php?r=$uri;
location ~ \.php$ {
rewrite ^/system/(.*)$ /$1 break;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
try_files $uri =404;
# NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
}
location / {
rewrite /(.*) /index.php?r=$1;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
try_files $uri =404;
# NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}

Answer 2

To complete the accepted answer, I add some parts to get static files working:
location ~ ^/system(.*) {
root /srv/www/xxx/backend/web;
rewrite ^/system/(.*)$ /$1 break;
try_files $uri /system/index.php?r=$1&$args;
location ~ \.php$ {
rewrite ^/system/(.*)$ /$1 break;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
try_files $uri =404;
# NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location ~ (.*\.(js|css|png|jpg|gif|swf|ico|pdf|mov|fla|zip|rar|mp4|ogg|woff|ttf))$ {
rewrite ^/system/(.*)$ /$1 break;
try_files $uri =404;
}
}
The last location solves the static files problem whereby files would not load from this place.