Statistics on nginx

Update: This is the content in my nginx configuration, if it helps:

server {
listen 80;
server_name localhost;
root /var/www/html;
index index.html index.php index.htm;
include /var/www/html/nginx.conf;
rewrite ^/sitemap_index\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=1 last;
rewrite ^/([^/]+?)-sitemap([0-9]+)?\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=$1&sitemap_n=$2 last;

#charset koi8-r;
#access_log /var/log/nginx/log/host.access.log main;

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

#error_page 404 /404.html;

# redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
#
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
location = /50x.html {
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
}

# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
#
location ~ \.php$ {
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/html/$fastcgi_script_name;
}

}

Hi André,

you may use the option “Use WP Permalinks”. When you use this option, you need to use also a non-default Permalink scheme like “Day and Name” (see Permalink screen).
You are right on Apache servers WP creates .htaccess files. nginx uses the nginx.conf and other files which are not stored in the folder of the blog instead.
I’m no nginx expert. I followed the examples https://wiki.nginx.org/WordPress and https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Nginx . As far as I can read your configuration, I would say that a non-default Permalink scheme should work.
I believe the lines

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

make it possible.

Does non-default Permalink scheme work in your blog? If it does work then you can use the option “Use WP Permalinks”. (The description of this option is a little bit incomplete and maybe confusing.)

Tim

Hi Tim,

Firstly, thank you very much for the reply. I just changed all my nginx config files following the https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Nginx examples strictly, and defined the option Use WP Permalinks, just like you said. I already use non-default Permalink scheme.

You can to see the situation in two examples:

– Here’s a post example: https://ipodschool.com/2013/01/facebook-introduz-mensagens-de-voz-exclusivas-para-o-messenger-movel/ (as you can see, I use non-default permalinks working fine)

– Here’s the link that podpress is using: https://ipodschool.com/podpress_trac/web/45699/0/ipscast-27.1.mp3 (as you can see, I got a 404 error).

As I just changed all my nginx configuration to the WordPress recommendation from the link you sent me one and it still not working, do you have any other ideas?

Thanks.

No not really. But I can give you my .conf files. This way you may discover a relevant difference.

My configuration is one for a nginx stack on my local computer and the blog is in the sub folder wp34en/. If you think about using these files then you need to adjust all values according to the location of the blog on your server.

• nginx.conf
  https://nopaste.me/paste/203786385950e6f74098967
• /global/restrictions.conf
  https://nopaste.me/paste/63153471350e6f7f10c7d6
• /global/wordpress.conf
  https://nopaste.me/paste/37669495550e6f873dd158
• fastcgi.conf
  https://nopaste.me/paste/132617461650e6f97d9789b
• mime.types
  https://nopaste.me/paste/7641536450e6f9bb0db52

I have made 2 changes compared to the example on https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Nginx :

• worker_processes 1; instead of worker_processes 2;
  (I have installed my nginx stack on a Windows computer and if I set this value to one I get 2 process which are enough.)
• rewrite ^ $scheme://mysite.com$uri redirect; instead of rewrite ^ $scheme://mysite.com$request_uri redirect;
  (This better when you use the default Permalinks scheme. Using $request_uri doubled the query arguments.)

You just used the WordPress codex config, just like me. Our settings are almost the same, I can see just one difference in our configs:

You is using:

server {
                server_name  _;
                #rewrite ^ $scheme://localhost$request_uri redirect;
                rewrite ^ $scheme://localhost$uri redirect;
        }

I am using the line you commented, that is as WordPress Codex shows. What’s the difference between request_uri and uri? That’s the only one differente in our codes.

Oh yes, I’m using worker_processes 2, but that really doesn’t matter.

The difference is that if I use rewrite ^ $scheme://localhost$request_uri redirect; then I get sometimes doubled query arguments.

Still not working – what’s really crazy as we are on same configs! Your plugin have two other alternatives to get statistics. Is there a way to use any other of this other alternatives with nginx?

I noticed that you use a Cache plugin. Deactivating this plugin is no solution. But it would be interesting to know whether it would make a difference. I do not use such plugin.

Furthermore I placed my audio files in a sub folder of the wp-content/ folder. The media files of your blog seem to be in a sub folder directly below the domain. Maybe some of the restrictions prevent the access to this folder for the podPress script. Could you try to place a media file also in a sub folder of the wp-content/ folder?

Is there a way to use any other of this other alternatives with nginx?

The second method may work. (It works on my system but the WP Permalinks method works too.)
The third method (download.mp3) will probably not work with your current setup. (It does not work with my configuration.)

I have made a further test and placed a media file in a folder outside and above the wp-content/ folder (e.g. https://localhost/wp34en/podcasts/hallo3.mp3) and the “Use WP Permalinks” method still works with my configuration.

You just discovered the problem! I really use W3TC cache plugin, and it has an “include” in nginx that adds this code in my config file: https://nopaste.me/paste/1660259550e70a775a26e

Removing this included content, podPress statistics works. Do you have any idea about how to have both W3TC and podPress working?

I read the page again and found this section https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Nginx#URL_Rewrites_.2F_Permalinks which may be of interest.
Further it seems to be necessary to have additional settings in case one uses one of the famous Cache plugins. In the example of the wordpress.conf on that page you can see the lines

# Uncomment one of the lines below for the appropriate caching plugin (if used).
#include global/wordpress-ms-subdir-wp-super-cache.conf;
#include global/wordpress-ms-subdir-w3-total-cache.conf;

and there further notes e.g. here
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Nginx#W3_Total_Cache_Rules

Maybe you could try to add a further exception rule to the lines

# Don't cache uris containing the following segments
if ($request_uri ~* "(/wp-admin/|/xmlrpc.php|/wp-(app|cron|login|register|mail).php|wp-.*.php|/feed/|index.php|wp-comments-popup.php|wp-links-opml.php|wp-locations.php|sitemap(_index)?.xml|[a-z0-9_-]+-sitemap([0-9]+)?.xml)") {
        set $cache_uri 'null cache';
}

When the statistics feature is active then the URLs of the podPress media files will always contain the phrase /podpress_trac.

The principle behind the podPress statistics is that it does masks certain media files URLs during the page request like
https://example.com/podpress_trac/web/9/0/example.mp3.
web is one of 3 download ways (web, feed, play). The following number (here 9) is the post ID which is followed by the index of the media file in the post (0 means it is the first one in a post).
If someone clicks on the player or one of the download links podPress will notice that and send a HTTP 302 redirect with the real URL of the media file.

If you click on a download link of a media files added with podPress then you should be able see the request and the redirect in the log files access.log of your server. What does can you see? Or does the error.log contain an error?

Ah okay, I read your last post just now. Maybe there is a way to exclude podPress URLs somehow.

(I need a few minutes.)

I would try to add an exception for request URLs which contain the phrase podpress_trac.
Try to add

if ($request_uri ~* "/\/podpress_trac\/") {
    set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}

or

if ($request_uri ~* "podpress_trac") {
    set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}

to this .conf file (https://nopaste.me/paste/1660259550e70a775a26e).
Maybe after line 39.