# Equivalent of Apache's SetEnv Variable

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [July 29, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407 "2010-07-29T18:19:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/1 "2010-07-29T18:19:08Z")

</div>

Issue:  
I’d like to configure Magento to run in multi-domain mode.  
I’ve been successful doing this via Apache in the past.  
It seems that Nginx should be equally capable, but I haven’t succeeded.

Server Specs:  
Nginx (latest)  
PHP 5.3.3  
PHP-FPM enabled  
Magento (latest)

What I Know:  
Apache relies on the SetEnv variable in the virtual host definition or  
a similar instruction in an .htaccess file to achieve this  
functionality. The specifics are here:  
[Adobe Commerce Documentation](http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/multi-store_set_up/multiple-website-setup).

What I Don’t Know:  
Does Nginx have an equivalent to SetEnv?  
Can Nginx be configured to imitate this configuration through rewrites  
or some other method?

Larger Community to Benefit:  
There are a number of people in the Nginx forum, Magento forum, etc.  
asking about this. It would be stellar if someone could provide us  
with a definitive answer - even if that answer is ‘it can’t be done’  
or ‘proxy Nginx to Apache’. If anyone supplies an answer via the  
mailing list, I will make sure that the answer is shared in the forums  
and elsewhere for maximum benefit.

Thanks so much!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/2 "2010-07-29T19:16:31Z")

</div>

[http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpFcgiModule#fastcgi\_param](http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpFcgiModule#fastcgi_param)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/3 "2010-07-29T19:22:22Z")

</div>

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 11:18:07AM -0500, Raina G. wrote:

> What I Know:  
> Apache relies on the SetEnv variable in the virtual host definition or  
> a similar instruction in an .htaccess file to achieve this  
> functionality. The specifics are here:  
> [Adobe Commerce Documentation](http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/multi-store_set_up/multiple-website-setup).
> 
> What I Don’t Know:  
> Does Nginx have an equivalent to SetEnv?  
> Can Nginx be configured to imitate this configuration through rewrites  
> or some other method?

Probably, you need

```
 server {

     location / {
         fastcgi_pass ...
         fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_CODE base;
         fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_TYPE website;
         ...
     }
 }

```

–  
Igor S.  
[http://sysoev.ru/en/](http://sysoev.ru/en/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/4 "2010-08-03T23:05:24Z")

</div>

I’ve tried several variations, but haven’t been able to get this  
working. The virtual hosts are set up fine, and both domains will load  
a home page, but Magento doesn’t seem to be picking up on the  
MAGE\_RUN\_CODE or MAGE\_RUN\_TYPE variables being set. From the secondary  
home page, all links (category/product pages) point to those pages on  
the main domain. I’m confident everything within the Magento database  
configuration is set up correctly.

Here’s what I’ve got:  
Primary domain: [http://dev.swimkitten.com/](http://dev.swimkitten.com/)  
Secondary domain: [http://dev.swimkitten.co.uk/](http://dev.swimkitten.co.uk/)

/etc/nginx/nginx.conf - [http://pastie.org/1073715](http://pastie.org/1073715)  
/etc/nginx/conf.d/dev.swimkitten.com.conf - [http://pastie.org/1073720](http://pastie.org/1073720)  
/etc/nginx/conf.d/dev.swimkitten.co.uk.conf - [http://pastie.org/1073722](http://pastie.org/1073722)  
/etc/fastcgi\_params - [http://pastie.org/1073725](http://pastie.org/1073725)

Any further thoughts? I’ve tried putting the variables in:  
location /  
and  
location ~ .php$

I haven’t yet tried making 2 separate fastcgi\_params files and  
pointing to the respective ones from within each domain.conf file.

Thanks for any further help with this!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/5 "2010-07-29T19:27:38Z")

</div>

Fabulous. Thank you. I will try it and report back asap.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/6 "2010-08-03T23:20:38Z")

</div>

A quick note your fastcgi\_param should do it. Are you sure it’s in all  
the locations it needs to be?

It should expose those as $\_SERVER variables.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/7 "2010-08-04T01:12:27Z")

</div>

Ok. That’s really helpful information. Right now, both of these output  
nothing:

\<?php echo $\_SERVER['MAGE\_RUN\_CODE']; ?\> \<?php echo $\_SERVER['MAGE\_RUN\_TYPE']; ?\>

That is what you meant, right? I’ll investigate further.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/8 "2010-08-04T01:45:49Z")

</div>

Ok, great. I just noticed that the Magento config listed on the Nginx  
Wiki is way different than the one I’d grabbed from the Magento  
forums. I’ll wade through those differences in a little while and see  
if I can reconcile them intelligently.

I don’t have a solid understanding of this stuff - so allow yourself  
to be inspired by anything I post at your own risk. 🙂 Trial and error  
is my major MO.

Thanks for your insight, Michael.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/9 "2010-08-04T01:35:52Z")

</div>

yeah, var\_dump($\_SERVER) - should show you normal variables.

Do you see $\_SERVER[‘HTTPS’]?

I think the key location you’re missing is putting it in here:

location ~ .php$ { ## Execute PHP scripts  
expires off; ## Do not cache dynamic content  
fastcgi\_param HTTPS $fastcgi\_https;  
fastcgi\_param SCRIPT\_FILENAME  
$document\_root$fastcgi\_script\_name;  
fastcgi\_param PATH\_INFO $fastcgi\_script\_name;  
fastcgi\_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;  
fastcgi\_index index.php;  
include fastcgi\_params; ## See /etc/nginx/fastcgi\_params

try adding these?

```
         fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_CODE base;
         fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_TYPE website;

}

```

FYI, I was not aware of an $fastcgi\_https variable. If there is one,  
that is awesome and I need to add that to my fastcgi\_params - it  
should be default as most apps seem to rely on $\_SERVER[‘HTTPS’]

I am going to go look if it exists or not 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 12:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/10 "2010-08-04T12:16:51Z")

</div>

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Raina G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> Ok, great. I just noticed that the Magento config listed on the Nginx  
> Wiki is way different than the one I’d grabbed from the Magento  
> forums. I’ll wade through those differences in a little while and see  
> if I can reconcile them intelligently.

btw where do you define this value?

fastcgi\_param  HTTPS $fastcgi\_https;

I don’t see any place in the nginx source code where $fastcgi\_https is  
a legitimate variable. are you defining it yourself somewhere else?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/11 "2010-08-04T16:53:50Z")

</div>

As I mentioned, I don’t really know what I’m doing.

This is where I got my initial configuration from, though, in the  
Magento forums. Perhaps the user who posted there can shed some light?  
[http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/7931/#t211050](http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/7931/#t211050)

Hope that helps. Once I do get this sorted out in a way that is  
satisfactory to me, I will post on the wikis. I’ll post the steps I’ve  
taken to compile and install the latest versions of PHP, Nginx and  
MySQL for Magento, too, as there were a few sticky bits involved. The  
information floating around on Nginx+Magento isn’t exactly abundant.  
I’m going to try and get things working with APC cache and/or Varnish,  
too, before I consider this work done. Right now, PHP-FPM is being a  
total memory hog, even on my virtual server that has no traffic and  
just one default Magento installation. Not quite sure how to tackle  
that yet, either. I personally do like Magento a lot, though  
optimizing it for performance is a chore!

Thanks again for your time!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/12 "2010-08-04T17:08:28Z")

</div>

So far, so good. I’d tried this location previously, but hadn’t tested  
with the variable dump, so didn’t think it was working. I removed it  
from location /, and it is still working. location ~ .php$ alone  
seems to be adequate, and each domain is respecting it’s unique  
settings in the var dump.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/13 "2010-08-04T21:54:46Z")

</div>

I personally don’t use location / unless absolutely needed.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/14 "2010-08-04T02:22:06Z")

</div>

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Raina G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> Ok, great. I just noticed that the Magento config listed on the Nginx  
> Wiki is way different than the one I’d grabbed from the Magento  
> forums. I’ll wade through those differences in a little while and see  
> if I can reconcile them intelligently.
> 
> I don’t have a solid understanding of this stuff - so allow yourself  
> to be inspired by anything I post at your own risk. 🙂 Trial and error  
> is my major MO.
> 
> Thanks for your insight, Michael.

I have to say that that config you were using seemed extremely  
overkill. However, depending on how Magento is designed (and I haven’t  
heard a lot of positive feedback about it) it could require a lot of  
oddball configuration.

What I’ve realized over the couple years I’ve been using nginx is that  
most people overengineer their configuration. I hardly ever need more  
than a few lines of special sauce for anything I’ve ran in nginx. Of  
course, I’m a minimalist.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 11:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/15 "2010-08-04T23:46:02Z")

</div>

On 04/08/2010 01:21, Michael S. wrote:

> What I’ve realized over the couple years I’ve been using nginx is that  
> most people overengineer their configuration. I hardly ever need more  
> than a few lines of special sauce for anything I’ve ran in nginx. Of  
> course, I’m a minimalist.

However, all the default configs that I have seen for PHP setups on the  
wiki, etc, seem insecure to my mind. They nearly all point _all_ files  
named xx.php to be processed by the your php interpreter. Coupled with  
nearly all non trivial applications having some “upload” feature this  
allows a gaping potential issue to upload arbitrary files named xx.php  
and you are allowing arbitrary code to be uploaded…

I setup my machines to only point files in limited directories to be  
processed by the php interpreter. Coupled with specific handling of any  
upload/temp/template/public directories or anywhere else that might  
accidently contain something it shouldn’t…

See, just checked the wiki. Surely this example allows you to  
immediately upload a new file with a .php suffix and exploit the server?  
[http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxMediaWiki](http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxMediaWiki)  
Does Drupal allow uploads? If so then good luck…  
[Nginx, Fastcgi, PHP, rewrite config for Drupal | Drupal.org](http://drupal.org/node/110224)  
Surely Dokuwiki allows uploads?  
[Dokuwiki | NGINX](http://wiki.nginx.org/Dokuwiki)

Make your config secure! Don’t just trust the upload function parsing  
and allowing only certain filename patterns!

Good luck

Ed W

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/16 "2010-08-04T23:48:57Z")

</div>

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 2:44 PM, Ed W [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> However, all the default configs that I have seen for PHP setups on the  
> wiki, etc, seem insecure to my mind. Â They nearly all point _all_ files  
> named xx.php to be processed by the your php interpreter. Â Coupled with  
> nearly all non trivial applications having some “upload” feature this allows  
> a gaping potential issue to upload arbitrary files named xx.php and you are  
> allowing arbitrary code to be uploaded…

Someone just posted this on my blog:

location ~ .php$ {  
…  
try\_files $uri =404;  
…  
}

exploit [http://site.ru/images/as5df3.jpeg/.php](http://site.ru/images/as5df3.jpeg/.php)

might be an interesting approach, haven’t tried it yet. would this add  
an additional stat call or two though for every PHP request, Igor?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/17 "2010-08-04T22:01:48Z")

</div>

Well magento is not known to be the best piece of software.

I may be working with magento and nginx soon but not sure. Was looking  
forward to seeing how I could tame that beast.

Php-fpm itself isn’t a memory hog it’s a combination of the php  
built-ins, modules, and configuration and then the code itself. I have  
certain pools that average more ram per process than others - it is most  
likely due to apc usage and/or just the underlying php code. My pool  
averages less because I write pretty tight php code; another client runs  
a vbulletin forum with lots of addons and his memory usage per php  
process is much higher.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/18 "2010-08-05T04:41:01Z")

</div>

On Wed, 2010-08-04 at 22:44 +0100, Ed W wrote:

> See, just checked the wiki. Surely this example allows you to  
> immediately upload a new file with a .php suffix and exploit the server?  
> [http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxMediaWiki](http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxMediaWiki)

Mediawiki doesn’t allow that. It filters by an allowed list of  
extensions, and .php isn’t among them.

Of course, if you can also let Nginx provide another ounce of  
prevention, then all the better. Unfortunately most PHP applications  
expect to be able to run arbitrary PHP scripts from almost any directory  
under the sun, so you can either account for each and every script  
(hopefully they put included files in a separate directory) or simply  
make sure that it’s not possible to upload files ending with .php.

Regards,  
Cliff

–

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 8:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/19 "2010-08-05T08:39:15Z")

</div>

On Wed, Aug 04, 2010 at 02:48:07PM -0700, Michael S. wrote:

> location ~ .php$ {  
> …  
> try\_files $uri =404;  
> …  
> }
> 
> exploit [http://site.ru/images/as5df3.jpeg/.php](http://site.ru/images/as5df3.jpeg/.php)
> 
> might be an interesting approach, haven’t tried it yet. would this add  
> an additional stat call or two though for every PHP request, Igor?

Yes, it adds a stat() syscall, however, it can be eliminated with  
open\_file\_cache. Note also, that it works only if nginx and php are  
on the same host.

–  
Igor S.  
[http://sysoev.ru/en/](http://sysoev.ru/en/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Raina\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Raina_G)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 9:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407/20 "2010-08-05T09:03:15Z")

</div>

Yeah I expect nginx to only be aware of the filesystem it has access to.  
So open\_file\_cache saves stat calls? How do you invalidate the cache if  
a file is removed? Or if I put a new file that wasn’t there I want it to  
instantly show up not 404 for a while? Apologies if you’ve covered this  
already.

[Next page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/equivalent-of-apaches-setenv-variable/192407.md?page=2)