What should be nginx configuration while switching from htaccess?

Question

I am using nginx for the first time in my life.

I came to know that nginx does not follow htaccess.

Rewrite rule the way we applied in htaccess should apply in nginx conf file. I don't know how.

I opened nginx conf file. I used this converter to convert my htaccess to nginx config file. I attached htaccess and equivalent config file.

I even don't know whether rewrite mod is enabled or not? Or I will say I don't know exact way to find it out.

htaccess code

RewriteEngine on
# if a directory or a file exists, use it directly
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# otherwise forward it to index.php
RewriteRule . index.php
php_value session.cookie_domain .abc.in

Nginx conf

user www-data;
worker_processes 4;
pid /var/run/nginx.pid;

events {
        worker_connections 768;
        # multi_accept on;
}

http {

        ##
        # Basic Settings
        ##

        sendfile on;
        tcp_nopush on;
        tcp_nodelay on;
        keepalive_timeout 65;
        types_hash_max_size 2048;
        # server_tokens off;

        # server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
        # server_name_in_redirect off;

        include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
        default_type application/octet-stream;

        ##
        # Logging Settings
        ##

        access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

        ##
        # Gzip Settings
        ##

        #rewrite on;
        gzip on;
        gzip_disable "msie6";

        # gzip_vary on;
        # gzip_proxied any;
        # gzip_comp_level 6;
        # gzip_buffers 16 8k;
        # gzip_http_version 1.1;
        # gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

        ##
        # nginx-naxsi config
        ##
        # Uncomment it if you installed nginx-naxsi
        ##

        #include /etc/nginx/naxsi_core.rules;

        ##
        # nginx-passenger config
        ##
        # Uncomment it if you installed nginx-passenger
        ##

        #passenger_root /usr;
        #passenger_ruby /usr/bin/ruby;

        ##
        # Virtual Host Configs
        ##

        include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
        include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;

        server
        {
                listen       80;
                server_name  abc.in;

                # nginx configuration

                location /
                {
                        if (!-e $request_filename)
                        {
                                rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.php;
                        }
                }
        }
}

Answer 1

I was wrong. This is a path mistake. I was changing file at different location.

I never found clear documentation on internet for this.

When I was doing some stuff on nginx server found that nginx does have sites-enabled directory which holds a file named default which holds server level configuration.

I changed index.html to index.php and everything works!!!