nginx rewrite rules for lithium php framework

Question

I have been trying to get lithium running with Nginx with no success. The directory structure of lithium is like this

lithium
  |-> app libraries .htaccess
      |-> webroot .htacess --other directories
           |-> index.php .htaccess --other files

I copied the lithium folder into my /var/www/. The path of lithium is /var/www/lithium/

Now I set up the rewrite rules this way in my nginx.conf

server {
        listen       80;
        server_name  localhost;
        root /var/www/;

    location /lithium {
       rewrite ^/$ /app/webroot/ break;
       rewrite ^(.*)$ /app/webroot/$1 break;
    }

    location /lithium/app {
       rewrite ^/$ /webroot/ break;
       rewrite ^(.*)$ /webroot/$1 break;
     }

    location /lithium/app/webroot {
       if (!-e $request_filename){
        rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.php?url=$1 break;
        }
     }
 ...then my php and other configurations

But nginx always throws a 404 error. Why is that happening?

I also tried this

server {
            listen       80;
            server_name  localhost;
            root /var/www/;

location /lithium {
        if (!-e $request_filename) {
            rewrite ^/lithium/(.+)$ /lithium/app/webroot/$1 last;
            break;
            }
        }

        location /lithium/app/webroot {
        if (!-e $request_filename) {
            rewrite ^/lithium/app/webroot/(.+)$ /lithium/app/webroot/index.php?url=$1 last;
            break;
        }
    }
...then my php and other configurations

But again there is a 404 error.

Edit

As suggested i changed my server's root to /var/www/lithium/app/webroot so my nginx conf looks like this

server {
        listen   80;
        server_name localhost;

        root   /var/www/lithium/app/webroot;
        access_log /var/log/lithium/access.log;
        error_log /var/log/lithium/error.log warn;

        index  index.php index.html;

        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;

        location ~ \.php$
        {
          .. ...
           ......

}

now i can see lithium's home but when i go to lithium's test dashboard which is http://localhost/test it again shows lithium's home instead of the test dashboard.When i use apache and go to url http://localhost/test it shows me the test dashboard. So the nginx rewrite rules are still not completely correct.More if i point root to lithium's webroot i cannot access other directories in my /var/www/

EDITED AGIAN

This is my complete server block

server { 
    server_name  lithium;
    root   /var/www/lithium/app/webroot;
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/lith.access.log;
    error_log   /var/log/nginx/lith.error.log;

    listen       127.0.0.2:80;
    rewrite_log on;

    # rewrite rules for lithium
    location / {
            index  index.php index.html;

            try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?url=$uri&$args;
    }


    location ~ \.php$ {
            fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            #include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
            fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $host;
    }

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

I am using php 5.4.3. as php-fpm. I tried doing whats mentioned at lithium's official site here but i dont get this line

cp -f sapi/fpm/init.d.php-fpm /etc/init.d/php-fpm

which location is sapi referring to? Any ideas?

Answer 1

It'd be simpler to just point to webroot using root /var/www/lithium/app/webroot.

Or you can do the following.

root /var/www

then use try_files instead of ugly if's:

index  index.php index.html;

location ~ \.php$ {
    ...
}

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

location /lithium/app/ {
    rewrite ^/lithium/app/(.*)$ /lithium/app/webroot/$1;
}

location /lithium/ {
    rewrite ^/lithium/(.*)$ /lithium/app/webroot/$1;
}

location / {
    rewrite ^(.*)$ /lithium/app/webroot/$1;
}

Don't forget to protect the other directories.

Answer 2

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;

You aren't passing the URI through to Lithium -- you're appending the query string, which is empty. You probably want the following:

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?url=$uri&$args;

Assuming that Lithium expects to be called with index.php?uri=/test (which is what your original configuration implies).

Edit: The Lithium wiki does suggest the top try_files line, which implies that it inspects the FastCGI variables to determine the URL to serve.

Answer 3

I think you are not setting the path correct. Try running just a basic nginx config: http://lithify.me/docs/manual/configuration/servers/nginx.wiki

Turning on php errors can also be helpful. Configuration errors like setting the path to the lithium libraries are not obvious unless you have php errors turn on.

Answer 4

#include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;

You're not including the configuration file which sets most of the FastCGI variables passed to PHP, so Lithium is probably not able to determine which URL is being requested. Uncomment this line and move it above the SCRIPT_FILENAME line so that your block looks like this:

location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $host;
}