nginx, php-fpm and tilde user directories

Question

I'm using nginx and php5-fpm on a Debian system.

I want my server to serve like so;

• ip/index.html serves the static html page (or files) at the nginx web root
• and likewise, ip/somefile.php (or index.php ) serves PHP through php-fpm
• ip/~user/index.html serves the static html page (or files) in /home/user/public_html
• and likewise, ip/~user/somefile.php (or index.php ) serves PHP through php-fpm

(where ip is either an IPv4 or IPv6 address).

---

Here is my configuration for nginx :

server {
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;

        server_name _;
        root /usr/share/nginx/www;
        index index.php index.html index.htm;

        # Deny access to all dotfiles
        location ~ /\. {
                deny all;
        }

        location ~ \.php$ {
                include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;

                try_files $uri = 404; # Prevents exploit
                fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
                fastcgi_index index.php;
        }

        # Serve user directories
        location ~ ^/~(.+?)(/.*)?$ {
                alias /home/$1/public_html$2;
                autoindex on;
        }
}

And for php-fpm :

; Start a new pool named 'www'.
; the variable $pool can we used in any directive and will be replaced by the
; pool name ('www' here)
[www]

; Per pool prefix
; It only applies on the following directives:
; - 'slowlog'
; - 'listen' (unixsocket)
; - 'chroot'
; - 'chdir'
; - 'php_values'
; - 'php_admin_values'
; When not set, the global prefix (or /usr) applies instead.
; Note: This directive can also be relative to the global prefix.
; Default Value: none
;prefix = /path/to/pools/$pool

; Unix user/group of processes
; Note: The user is mandatory. If the group is not set, the default user's group
;       will be used.
user = www-data
group = www-data

; The address on which to accept FastCGI requests.
; Valid syntaxes are:
;   'ip.add.re.ss:port'    - to listen on a TCP socket to a specific address on
;                            a specific port;
;   'port'                 - to listen on a TCP socket to all addresses on a
;                            specific port;
;   '/path/to/unix/socket' - to listen on a unix socket.
; Note: This value is mandatory.
listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.sock

; Set listen(2) backlog.
; Default Value: 128 (-1 on FreeBSD and OpenBSD)
;listen.backlog = 128

; Set permissions for unix socket, if one is used. In Linux, read/write
; permissions must be set in order to allow connections from a web server. Many
; BSD-derived systems allow connections regardless of permissions.
; Default Values: user and group are set as the running user
;                 mode is set to 0666
;listen.owner = www-data
;listen.group = www-data
;listen.mode = 0666

; List of ipv4 addresses of FastCGI clients which are allowed to connect.
; Equivalent to the FCGI_WEB_SERVER_ADDRS environment variable in the original
; PHP FCGI (5.2.2+). Makes sense only with a tcp listening socket. Each address
; must be separated by a comma. If this value is left blank, connections will be
; accepted from any ip address.
; Default Value: any
;listen.allowed_clients = 127.0.0.1

; ... and more that doesn't matter, just defaults

Both static files and PHP work in nginx web root ( ip/blah.html or ip/blah.php ), static files also work in user directories ( ip/~user/blah.html ) however PHP is giving 404 in user directories.

Can someone help me fix my config?

---

Edit: some ls -la s incase it's a permission issue.

kvanb@pegasus:~$ ls -la
total 32
drwxr-xr-x 3 kvanb sudo  4096 Jan  4 04:04 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root  root  4096 Jan  4 01:36 ..
-rw------- 1 kvanb kvanb  570 Jan  4 02:54 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 kvanb sudo   220 Jan  4 01:36 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 kvanb sudo  3392 Jan  4 01:36 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 kvanb sudo   675 Jan  4 01:36 .profile
drwxr-xr-x 2 kvanb sudo  4096 Jan  4 03:41 public_html
-rw------- 1 kvanb sudo  3303 Jan  4 04:04 .viminfo

kvanb@pegasus:~/public_html$ ls -la
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 2 kvanb sudo 4096 Jan  4 03:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 kvanb sudo 4096 Jan  4 04:04 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 kvanb sudo   21 Jan  4 03:40 index.php
-rwxr-xr-x 1 kvanb sudo   20 Jan  4 03:09 info.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 kvanb sudo    4 Jan  4 03:41 test.html

kvanb@pegasus:/usr/share/nginx/www$ ls -la
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan  4 03:28 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan  4 01:34 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  383 Jul  7  2006 50x.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  151 Oct  4  2004 index.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   20 Jan  4 03:28 info.php

Answer 1

You'll need to add this rule before the initial php one:

    # Serve user directories php files
    location ~ ^/~(.+?)(/.*\.php)$ {
            alias /home/$1/public_html;
            autoindex on;
            include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;

            try_files $2 = 404; # Prevents exploit
            fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
    }

This one matches all php files in the user directory, directing them through php-fpm. The php rule you have matches all these php files, but tries to find them in the wrong directory.

Answer 2

I came across this whilst trying to solve a similar problem. So I'll add the solution I found when I got to it. This was on Arch, but it is systemd related.

This solution is for my development machine, and for good reasons, you shouldn't run a public site from your /home folder.

I configured php-fpm and nginx to run as my user. Edit the following file, and remove the ProtectHome=true line

sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/php-fpm.service

Reload, and restart everything;

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart nginx.service
systemctl restart php-fpm.service