Configure Nginx as reverse proxy for Apache not rendering PHP - php

Question

I'm trying to setup Nginx as a reverse proxy for Apache, from what I've read, it allows nginx to serve static content and Apache handles the backend PHP stuff, but i cant seem to get Apache to render.
I'm on CentOS7, i installed nginx just using yum install nginx, then i installed PHP7.2 by doing the following;
yum install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
yum-config-manager --enable remi-php72
yum install php72 php72-php-fpm php72-php-mysqlnd php72-php-opcache php72-php-xml php72-php-xmlrpc php72-php-gd php72-php-mbstring php72-php-json
running php72 -v gives me
PHP 7.2.13 (cli) (built: Dec 8 2018 10:59:58) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.2.13, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend
Technologies
I then ran
ln -s /usr/bin/php72 /usr/bin/php
As yum installs the command as php72
I edited nginx.conf and changed the user from nginx to apache and changed the server block to;
server {
listen 80 default;
server_name 108.xxx.xxx.xxx;
# Load configuration files for the default server block.
include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;
location / {
root /var/www/html;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
}
error_page 404 /404.html;
location = /40x.html {
}
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
location = /50x.html {
}
}
I also added /etc/nginx/conf.d/proxy.conf with the following;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
client_max_body_size 10m;
client_body_buffer_size 128k;
proxy_connect_timeout 90;
proxy_send_timeout 90;
proxy_read_timeout 90;
proxy_buffer_size 4k;
proxy_buffers 4 32k;
proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k;
proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k;
I then installed Apache2 via yum install httpd.
I have then edited the Apache2 httpd.conf file;
- Listen 80
+ Listen 127.0.0.1:8080
I also edited /etc/opt/remi/php72/php-fpm.d/www.conf and changed user and group to apache and also
listen = /var/run/php-fpm.sock
listen.owner = apache
listen.group = apache
listen.mode = 0660
These are the only changes I have made.
I added 2 files to /var/www/html, index.html and index.php ... The index.html works perfect, and when i check with browserspy, it says that it is being served by Nginx, excellent. But when I run the index.php file it displays the actual php code and doesn't render it.
I have never really worked with Apache2 before, so i am unsure of how to look for the error. When i loook in Apache2 modules directory i can't find any PHP modules
ls -lah /etc/httpd/modules/ | grep php
returns nothing at all.
Any help would be really greatful, I have been looking for a solution for days.
Thanks

Answer 1

Nginx can definitely execute PHP scripts without the need of proxying back to Apache.
The reason why you're seeing just the PHP code rather than the website, is because your Apache configuration likely does not have the PHP module enabled.
You can do this by running yum --enablerepo=remi install php and running service apache2 restart to restart the server with the new configuration.
Installing the base PHP packages also adds the required modules for PHP files to be executed by Apache.
This should allow your server to start executing the PHP scripts as you expect.
If you'd like to instead run your PHP website via Nginx instead, you'll need to make some slight modifications to your Nginx configuration.
Firstly, you'll need to replace your location block to use the files on your local filesystem and then point any .php file to run using PHP-FPM.
location / {
root /var/www/html;
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}