Local WordPress 5.1.1 multisite with Nginx

Try changing the try_files part here to something simpler. And get ready to change it back if it doesn’t work. ??

    location ~ /wordpress/(.*)(\.php)?$ {
      index index.php index.html;
      # try_files $uri $uri.php /wordpress/$1/index.php /wordpress/index.php =404;
      try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
      fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
      include fastcgi_params;
      fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
      fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
    }

The good news is it didn’t break anything (the same links I mentioned above still work), but https://localhost/wordpress/multisite/ and https://localhost/wordpress/multisite/wp-admin/ still show the same behavior :/. Thanks for simplying the try_files though! I was wondering how that could be more managable.

That’s a bit complicated setup (for me). A multisite network on a sub-directory. There are multiple issues, as you mentioned. To fix 404 on sub-site and to fix redirect loop (that I never experienced), please try the following…

# Rules for Multisite Sub-directory install

# For sub-directory redirects
# Only one would apply
# If two needed to be applied, it'd throw a 404
if (!-e $request_filename) {
    rewrite  ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/wp-(content|admin|includes).*) /wordpress$1 break;
    rewrite  ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/.*\.php)$ /wordpress$1 break;
}

Modified from my working config for a multisite network on root of the domain such as at example.com… https://github.com/pothi/wordpress-nginx/blob/master/globals/mu-dir.conf

Also, I’d recommend to change the line that read…

try_files $uri $uri.php /wordpress/$1/index.php /wordpress/index.php =404;

to

try_files $uri $uri/ /wordpress/index.php$is_args$args;

I hope that helps to reduce the number of errors, especially the 404 errors for static resources.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by Pothi Kalimuthu. Reason: formatting fix

Oh, btw, blogs.dir has been retired now. Ref: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Multisite_Network_Administration (please search for the term “blogs.dir” to quickly reach the relevant text).

Thanks Pothi! That is all great information. I didn’t realize it is indeed a complicated setup. I studied your repository (which is great by the way, thank you for linking that), and believe I have extracted the necessary parts from it for my setup, but I’m still seeing the same behavior as before. Would you mind taking a look at my updated config?

http {
  include mime.types;
  default_type application/octet-stream;
  sendfile on;
  keepalive_timeout 65;
  gzip on;

  log_format compression '$time_local - "$uri" $status "$http_referer" $request_filename';
  access_log /Users/nicholas.chambers/log/nginx/access.log compression;
  error_log /Users/nicholas.chambers/log/nginx/error.log;

  upstream fpm {
    server 127.0.0.1:9000;
  }

  map $http_accept $webp_suffix {
    default "";
    "~*webp" ".webp";
  }

  server {
    listen 80;
    server_name localhost;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
  }

  server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name localhost;
 
    # ssl directives redacted

    root /Users/nicholas.chambers;

    location /dl {
      autoindex on;
      add_header X-location "static dl folder";

      types {
        text/plain sh;
        application/pdf pdf;
      }
    }

    location /wordpress {
      index index.php;
      rewrite_log on;
      add_header X-location "wordpress blogs";

      if ($uri ~ "files") {
        rewrite ^/wordpress/(?:.*/)?files/(.+) /wordpress/wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$1;
      }

      if ( -e $request_filename ) {
        add_header X-debug "did rewrite";
        rewrite ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+_(/wp-(content|admin|includes).*) /wordpress$1 break;
        rewrite ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/.*\.php)$ /wordpress$1 break;
      }

      location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri =404;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        include "fastcgi.conf";
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_pass fpm;
      }

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

      location ~ \.(?:css|js)$ {
        add_header X-thebug "got a resource";
        expires max;
      }

      location ~ \.(?:ttf|ttc|eot|woff|woff2|otf|svg)$ {
        expires max;
      }

      location ~ \.(?:gif|ico|webp)$ {
        valid_referers none blocked localhost;

        if ($invalid_referer) {
          return 403;
        }

        expires max;
      }

      location ~* ^.+\.(png|jpe?g)$ {
        valid_referers none blocked localhost;

        if ($invalid_referer) {
          return 403;
        }

        try_files $uri$webp_suffix $uri =404;
        expires max;
      }

      location ~ \.(?:rss|atom)$ {
        expires 600s;
      }
    }

    location ~ /w/(.*)(\.php)?$ {
      index index.php index.html;
      try_files $uri $uri.php /w/index.php =404;
      fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
      include fastcgi_params;
      fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
      fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
    }
  }
}

The /w block is for a mediawiki install I am messing around with, and the /dl is for a directory index of a different folder. I don’t believe either are relevant, but included them just in case. The above configuration works fine with nginx:

nicholas-chambers:~ nicholas.chambers$ nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /Users/nicholas.chambers/nginx/conf/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /Users/nicholas.chambers/nginx/conf/nginx.conf test is successful
nicholas-chambers:~ nicholas.chambers$ nginx -s reload
nicholas-chambers:~ nicholas.chambers$

However, whenever I try to curl one of the resources, I get an error:

nicholas-chambers:~ nicholas.chambers$ curl -sSI https://localhost/wordpress/multisite/wp-content/plugins/ghostkit/assets/vendor/font-awesome/all.min.js
HTTP/2 404
server: nginx/1.15.8
date: Tue, 16 Apr 2019 20:17:43 GMT
content-type: text/html
content-length: 153

With this entry in my error.log

2019/04/16 15:25:30 [error] 32009#0: *2988 open() "/Users/nicholas.chambers/wordpress/multisite/wp-content/plugins/ghostkit/assets/vendor/font-awesome/all.min.js" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 127.0.0.1, server: localhost, request: "HEAD /wordpress/multisite/wp-content/plugins/ghostkit/assets/vendor/font-awesome/all.min.js HTTP/2.0", host: "localhost"

I also don’t see the debug headers I added for the rewrite.

At line…

rewrite ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+_(/wp-(content|admin|includes).*) /wordpress$1 break;

… there is an extra underscore. The corrected line is…

rewrite ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/wp-(content|admin|includes).*) /wordpress$1 break;

I also don’t see the debug headers I added for the rewrite.

From what I know, there are two issue with add_header X-debug "did rewrite";

1. Inside an “if” statement, 100% safe things are “return” and “rewrite” statements. Ref: https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/depth/ifisevil/

2. An “add_header” statement can only be valid for a particular request only if the requests ends in a “location” block that contains “add_header”. Since, “rewrite” statements that follow “add_header” transfers the execution to another “location” block, the request doesn’t pick-up the “add_header”. Here’s a similar discussion where “expires” header wasn’t set as expected… https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/expires-headers-not-showing/ .

I hope that helps.

Thanks for the information about the headers. I’ll fix that and check out the if article. I did indeed accidentally typo the _ in my config, but the issue is still occurring without it. New if block:

if ( -e $request_filename ) {
  rewrite ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/wp-(content|admin|includes).*) /wordpress$1 break;
  rewrite ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/.*\.php)$ /wordpress$1 break;
}

I enabled the rewrite log, but don’t see any of the rewrites happening in my error log (which is why I attempted the add_header route actually). Thanks for the help, I’m really at a loss here as to what is going on.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by nchambers.

Sorry, my current if block is actually:

if ( !-e $request_filename ) {
  rewrite ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/wp-(content|admin|includes).*) /wordpress$1 break;
  rewrite ^/wordpress/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/.*\.php)$ /wordpress$1 break;
}

I had changed it from !-e -> -e, just to confirm that wasn’t the problem, since I had exhausted everything else I could think of

Please check if you have debug enabled in Nginx using the following command…

nginx -V 2>&1 | sed 's/--/\'$'\n &/g'

Ref: https://coderwall.com/p/gtgxww/intuitive-flags-information-of-nginx

If debug is indeed enabled, then please activate debug log with the guidelines from https://nginx.org/en/docs/debugging_log.html .

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by Pothi Kalimuthu. Reason: Added link that explains the code

Hi Pothi, apologies for the late reply. It doesn’t look like I do have debug enabled, so I’ll get that done at some point (although it will have to be later now). Thanks for your help, I learned a lot even though I couldn’t get this resolved.