Nginx Installation Notes

Nginx is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server and reverse proxy, as well as an IMAP/POP3 proxy server. Unlike traditional servers, Nginx doesn’t rely on threads to handle requests. Instead it uses a much more scalable event-driven (asynchronous) architecture. This architecture uses small, but more importantly, predictable amounts of memory under load.

The PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) is usually used to allow Nginx to process PHP files. Nowadays, PHP-FPM is bundled with any Unix PHP distribution. Phalcon + Nginx + PHP-FPM provides a powerful set of tools that offer maximum performance for your PHP applications.

Configuring Nginx for Phalcon

The following are potential configurations you can use to setup nginx with Phalcon:

Basic configuration

Using $_GET[‘_url’] as source of URIs:

server {

    listen   80;
    server_name localhost.dev;

    index index.php index.html index.htm;
    set $root_path '/var/www/phalcon/public';
    root $root_path;

    try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrite;

    location @rewrite {
        rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php?_url=/$1;
    }

    location ~ \.php {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index /index.php;

        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;

        fastcgi_split_path_info       ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO       $fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED $document_root$fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

    location ~* ^/(css|img|js|flv|swf|download)/(.+)$ {
        root $root_path;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

Using $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’] as source of URIs:

server {

    listen   80;
    server_name localhost.dev;

    index index.php index.html index.htm;
    set $root_path '/var/www/phalcon/public';
    root $root_path;

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

    location ~ \.php$ {
            try_files $uri =404;
            fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
            fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
            fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location ~* ^/(css|img|js|flv|swf|download)/(.+)$ {
        root $root_path;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

Dedicated Instance

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;

    charset      utf-8;

    #access_log  /var/log/nginx/host.access.log  main;

    set $root_path '/srv/www/htdocs/phalcon-website/public';

    location / {
        root   $root_path;
        index  index.php index.html index.htm;

        # if file exists return it right away
        if (-f $request_filename) {
            break;
        }

        # otherwise rewrite it
        if (!-e $request_filename) {
            rewrite ^(.+)$ /index.php?_url=/$1 last;
            break;
        }
    }

    location ~ \.php {
        # try_files    $uri =404;

        fastcgi_index  /index.php;
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;

        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_split_path_info       ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO       $fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED $document_root$fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

    location ~* ^/(css|img|js|flv|swf|download)/(.+)$ {
        root $root_path;
    }
}

Configuration by Host

And this second configuration allow you to have different configurations by host:

server {
    listen      80;
    server_name localhost;
    set         $root_path '/var/www/$host/public';
    root        $root_path;

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/$host-access.log;
    error_log   /var/log/nginx/$host-error.log error;

    index index.php index.html index.htm;

    try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrite;

    location @rewrite {
        rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php?_url=/$1;
    }

    location ~ \.php {
        # try_files    $uri =404;

        fastcgi_index  /index.php;
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;

        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_split_path_info       ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO       $fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED $document_root$fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

    location ~* ^/(css|img|js|flv|swf|download)/(.+)$ {
        root $root_path;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}