Location - or how to setup sites in subfolders

Server NGINX
1

I’m trying to give nginx a try as an alternative to my current server
solutions. Named-based virtual hosting SEEMS straightforward enough -
but I’m having a devil of a time trying to get subfolder based sites to
work. In other words -

egroupware.mydomain.com
roundcubemail.mydomain.com
ldap-account-manager.mydomain.com

for some examples, work just fine. But trying to get -

www.mydomain.com/egroupware
www.mydomain.com/roundcubemail
www.mydomain.com/ldap-account-manager

to work is an exercise in extreme frustration. I’m sure it doesn’t HAVE
to be - but Google thus far has let me down in retrieving the
information I need. What I’ve done thus far, for egroupware for
example:

I have a site file with:
server {
server_name www.amfeslan.local egroupware.amfeslan.local;
root /opt/egroupware;
index index.php;

 client_max_body_size 8M;
 rewrite ^/egroupware/(.*)$ /$1 last;
 try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$args;

 include global/php.conf;

}

my global/php.conf has:
location ~ .php$ {
# There’s gotta be a better way to do this - try and find it.
# Since nginx’s “best” match is this one - need to do rewrites
# here to get subfolders to work.
set $php_root $document_root;
if ($request_uri ~* /egroupware) {
set $php_root /opt/egroupware;
}

     # Zero-day exploit defense.
     try_files $uri =404;

     fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;

     include fastcgi_params;
     fastcgi_index index.php;
     fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $php_root$fastcgi_script_name;
     fastcgi_pass php;

}

Note that I tried to add the “if” construct in php.conf based on a
previous post - and I gotta believe there’s a better way to do this.
With or without the if construct, the above site works - but only for
egroupware. Revising the site file to:
server {
server_name www.amfeslan.local egroupware.amfeslan.local;
root /var/www;
index index.html;

 client_max_body_size 8M;

 location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
 }

 location ^~ /egroupware {
    root /opt/egroupware;
    index index.php;
    rewrite ^/egroupware/(.*)$ /$1 last;
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$args;
 }

 include global/php.conf;

}

Doesn’t work right. Can some kind soul help me not only fix this - but
get a better understanding of how to build these generic constructs?
Based on experience with other servers, I can’t believe folder-based
controls in nginx can be as difficult as I seem to be making it!

Daniel

2

2012/4/30 Daniel L. Miller [email protected]:

include global/php.conf;
}

Doesn’t work right. Can some kind soul help me not only fix this - but get
a better understanding of how to build these generic constructs? Based on
experience with other servers, I can’t believe folder-based controls in
nginx can be as difficult as I seem to be making it!

Put “location ~ .php$ { }” inside each “location ^~ /appname/ { }”
block instead of globally so it looks like this:

location ^~ /egroupware/ {

if index.php’s path is /opt/egroupware/index.php,

use “root /opt” instead

root /opt/egroupware;
index index.php;

and remove this

rewrite ^/egroupware/(.*)$ /$1 last;

and update this accordingly

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$args;
location ~ .php($|/) {
…
}
}

Also remember that some applications may need to know that it’s
running in a subdirectory or it will generate incorrect link (eg.
/something.php instead of /app/something.php).

3

On 4/29/2012 1:22 PM, Edho A. wrote:

2012/4/30 Daniel L. Miller[email protected]:

Note that I tried to add the “if” construct in php.conf based on a previous
post - and I gotta believe there’s a better way to do this. With or without
the if construct, the above site works - but only for egroupware.
[…]
root /opt/egroupware;
index index.php;

and remove this

rewrite ^/egroupware/(.*)$ /$1 last;

and update this accordingly

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$args;
location ~ .php($|/) {
…
}
}

Thank you! - that helped quite a bit. That way of thinking - of
including the php handler inside each location, instead of a global php
handler, just didn’t seem as “elegant” to me - but I can see the power
potential.

However - I still don’t understand WHY it works - specifically, why I
need to have “root /opt” instead of “root /opt/egroupware”. I’m
inferring that the location path is automatically added to the declared
root in processing. But if that’s the case, then to be able to declare,
“location ^~ /lam/”, and be able to reach a physical path of
“/opt/ldap-account-manager-3.7”, I need to add a symlink from the
extended path to “/opt/lam”. And while I may in fact do so for other
reasons - I WOULD like to be able to control exactly what nginx is
doing, and better yet - understand the how/why.

Daniel