nginx 404 when i use known file extensions in url - nginx

Question

Whenever I put a known file extension in the url nginx return 404 Not Found.
domain.com/myroute.foo and domain.com/foo/myroute.foo is fine, but domain.com/myroute.php and domain.com/foo/myroute.php (or for example .css, .js) returns 404 Not Found.
My nginx server config:
server {
listen 80;
server_name domain.com;
root /var/www/path/public;
charset utf-8;
gzip on;
#access_log logs/host.access.log main;
location / {
index index.html index.php index.htm;
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri = 404;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp|ico|pdf|flv|swf|exe|html|htm|txt|css|js) {
add_header Cache-Control public;
add_header Cache-Control must-revalidate;
expires 7d;
access_log off;
}
}
Why isn't a url with a known file extension (/myroute.php) going to my index.php file like any other url?

Answer 1

myroute.php does not exist on your server.
Nginx location directives are checked in this order
Directives with the "=" prefix that match the query exactly (literal string). If found, searching stops.
All remaining directives with conventional strings. If this match used the "^~" prefix, searching stops.
Regular expressions, in the order they are defined in the configuration file.
If #3 yielded a match, that result is used. Otherwise, the match from #2 is used
That means that your myroute.php request gets handled by the ~ \.php$ location block, which results in a 404 as per your try_files directive.
To solve this, you'll need to either make your location directive more specific (e.g. ~ index\.php$), or try_files exactly as you do in the location /. Using a rewrite could also solve your issue.
EDIT:
It is important to understand in what order nginx chooses location blocks over other location blocks. See more at the nginx wiki
Regarding your question, the easiest solution I think is to use try_files
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
in both your location ~ \.php$ { and location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp|ico|pdf|flv|swf|exe|html|htm|txt|css|js) { blocks
Note: don't forget to remove your old try_files $uri =404 from the .php$ block
Your final conf file should now look like this
server {
listen 80;
server_name domain.com;
root /var/www/path/public;
charset utf-8;
gzip on;
#access_log logs/host.access.log main;
location / {
index index.html index.php index.htm;
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp|ico|pdf|flv|swf|exe|html|htm|txt|css|js) {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
add_header Cache-Control public;
add_header Cache-Control must-revalidate;
expires 7d;
access_log off;
}
}