Wordpress config misbehaving in opposite ways using two configs - php

Question

If I have this config in sites-available in nginx for the aforementioned wordpress site, it will not display the root page (403 error), but it will display specific pages if I enter their URL manually, such as https:// subdomain.domain.tld/suchandsuch
server {
listen 80;
server_name subdomain.domain.tld;
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl;
## Your website name goes here.
server_name subdomain.domain.tld;
## Your only path reference.
root /var/www/subdomain.domain.tld;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/subdomain.domain.tld/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/subdomain.domain.tld/privkey.pem;
## This should be in your http block and if it is, it's not needed here.
index index.php;
location = /favicon.ico {
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location = /robots.txt {
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location / {
# This is cool because no php is touched for static content.
# include the "?$args" part so non-default permalinks doesn't break when using query string
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
#NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
#fastcgi_pass php;
#The following parameter can be also included in fastcgi_params file
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {
expires max;
log_not_found off;
}
}
However if I have this config set, it will do the opposite - it will show the root page, but any other pages I click on gives a 404 error:
server {
listen 80;
server_name subdomain.domain.tld;
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name subdomain.domain.tld;
root /var/www/subdomain.domain.tld;
index index.php index.html;
access_log /var/log/nginx/subdomain.domain.tld-access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/subdomain.domain.tld-error.log;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/subdomain.domain.tld/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/subdomain.domain.tld/privkey.pem;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
}
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
location = /favicon.ico {
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location = /robots.txt {
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {
expires max;
log_not_found off;
}
}
Could some part of each config be needed to be combined together to make a working config for wordpress?
I expected the wordpress files and MySQL database to function as it had on the Apache server I had it on previously.

Answer 1

ChatGPT did a bang-up job of helping me figure this out.
Here is the final config:
server {
listen 80;
server_name subdomain.domain.tld;
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name subdomain.domain.tld;
root /var/www/subdomain.domain.tld;
index index.php index.html;
access_log /var/log/nginx/subdomain.domain.tld-access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/subdomain.domain.tld-error.log;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/subdomain.domain.tld/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/subdomain.domain.tld/privkey.pem;
## This should be in your http block and if it is, it's not needed here.
index index.php;
location = /favicon.ico {
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location = /robots.txt {
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location / {
# This is cool because no php is touched for static content.
# include the "?$args" part so non-default permalinks doesn't break when using query string
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
#NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
#fastcgi_pass php;
#The following parameter can be also included in fastcgi_params file
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {
expires max;
log_not_found off;
}
}