nginx: 403 forbidden when php files in separate directory - php

Question

I've successfully installed nginx that uses PHP-FPM but unfortunately I'm having some trouble when loading my php files from a different directory. All my files are located in subdirectories in /var/www/html (e.g. all css-files are located in /var/www/html/css, all javascript-files are located in /var/www/html/js, all php-files are located in /var/www/html/php).
According to this, I changed the root directory path for my php files to /var/www/html/php:
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;
# SSL configuration
#
# listen 443 ssl default_server;
# listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
#
# Note: You should disable gzip for SSL traffic.
# See: https://bugs.debian.org/773332
#
# Read up on ssl_ciphers to ensure a secure configuration.
# See: https://bugs.debian.org/765782
#
# Self signed certs generated by the ssl-cert package
# Don't use them in a production server!
#
# include snippets/snakeoil.conf;
root /var/www/html;
# Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
index index.html index.htm index.php home.php;
server_name _;
location / {
# First attempt to serve request as file, then
# as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
#
location ~ \.php$ {
root /var/www/html/php;
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
# # With php7.0-cgi alone:
# fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
# With php7.0-fpm:
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
}
}
Unfortunately, when accessing my nginx server using my web browser, I'm getting error 403 (Forbidden). When accessing my index.php (http://192.168.2.109/index.php) directly, everything works fine. So, I think it means that the file permissions are correct but nginx isn't able to index the /var/www/html/php directory. Furthermore, /var/log/nginx/error.log includes:
2017/05/28 07:49:56 [error] 13678#13678: *1 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 192.168.2.101, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "192.168.2.109"
I already tried to enable autoindex and add the index specifier in the "location ~ .php$ {" section without success. The result is the same :(
Does anyone has an idea what I'm doing wrong/missing here? All suggestions in Nginx 403 error: directory index of [folder] is forbidden didn't solve my problem.

Answer 1

The problem are easy:
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
#
location ~ \.php$ {
root /var/www/html/php;
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
# # With php7.0-cgi alone:
# fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
# With php7.0-fpm:
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
}
As I can read, when you request a *.php file, you change the root address. But, when you request "default index", you are requesting /, not a .php
You need a new location, for change root path on / request. Try to use this:
location = / {
root /var/www/html/php;
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
}
Maybe, on this config, you need to put a "rewrite index.php;", but I didn't know because I've never test this configuration.
Don't think my new location order (location = /) is the same as yours (location /), because my order, with the equal sign, only apply when you request exactly the "main" location without any parameter.