Nginx rewrite rule for CodeIgniter

Question

Here is the rule in English:

Any HTTP request other than those for index.php, assets folder, files folder and robots.txt is treated as a request for your index.php file.

I have an .htaccess file that works correctly on Apache server:

RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|assets|files|robots\.txt)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]

Some correct results for this rule:

example.com = example.com/index.php

example.com/index.php/welcome = example.com/welcome

example.com/assets/css/main.css != example.com/index.php/assets/css/main.css

I tried some tools to convert from htaccess rule to nginx rule but all were incorrect.

Via http://winginx.com/htaccess (missing the exception rules for assets folder...):

location / { rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 break; }

Via http://www.anilcetin.com/convert-apache-htaccess-to-nginx/ (error in $1 value):

if ($1 !~ "^(index.php|assets|files|robots.txt)"){
    set $rule_0 1$rule_0;
}
if ($rule_0 = "1"){
    rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php/$1 last;
}

How can I fix this? It's really hard to debug the rule.

Here is my nginx config so far:

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  www.example.com example.com;

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

    location ~ \.php$ {
        root           html;
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  /var/www/html$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        fastcgi_params;
    }

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

Solution 1

You can add this to your config:

location ~* ^/(assets|files|robots\.txt) { }

This will work correctly with your location / rule.

Your config also need to add root document and default index file.

...
root /ftp/wardrobe;
index index.php index.html index.htm;

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

location ~* ^/(assets|files|robots\.txt) { }
...

Solution 2

You want to do this instead:

if ($request_uri !~ ^/(index\.php|assets|files|robots\.txt)) {
    rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php/$1 last;
}

$request_uri is for the original URI request by the client. If you want the URI request AFTER other Nginx rewrite rules have processed it then you would use $uri. However, for what you are trying to do the prior would be the one you would want.

Also, you need to escape special regular expression characters like . by using a backslash.

Solution 3

Please try this. It works for me.

server {
    server_name domain.tld;

    root /var/www/codeignitor;
    index index.html index.php;

    # set expiration of assets to MAX for caching
    location ~* \.(ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)(\?[0-9]+)?$ {
        expires max;
        log_not_found off;
    }

    location / {
        # Check if a file or directory index file exists, else route it to index.php.
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri =404;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Comments

[Letomkov]

It seems correct but doesn't work. Here are the results of some cases: example.com - 404, example.com/index.php - OK, example.com/assets/css/main.css - 404. Is there anyway can I debug the rule?

[cryptic ツ]

@Letomkov update your question with the contents of your Nginx config file.

[Letomkov]

I added my nginx config file to my question. I tried to replace the location / { ... } rule with your current question but it didn't work.

[Letomkov]

I can load the page with or without index.php but still can't load file in the assets folder

[anvoz]

Add error_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.error_log debug; rewrite_log on; to your config, restart the server then try to load a file in assets folder. Tell me if you see any error.

[Letomkov]

How could I get an error: open() "/etc/nginx/html/assets/..." failed (No such file or directory)? The rule is missing something that help nginx route to correct web directory?

[anvoz]

You were missing root {$your_document_root};

[Letomkov]

I missed something in my config that I've just figured out. Your rule is correct but it have to work with my location / rule. But if you request to a non-existed file in assets folder, it will still need to load the index.php file.

[Bernard Rosset]

You shall consider replacing $request_uri by $uri, as the latter is normalized (see nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#variables). For that to work, you will also need to change the regex filtering .php files processing, as yours currently won't handle the latter case of try_files as provided by Letomkov. See mezcalito.fr/hebergement/labo-single/2011/01/… for a more acceptable solution