Nginx Server with multiple applications on sub-directories

Question

My team has a server we use for internal tools and tests. It has a subdomain pointing to it: myserver.mycompany.com. What we're trying to achieve is to have multiple applications, each with under a sub-directory. I.e.:

• myserver.mycompany.com - generic entry page
• myserver.mycompany.com/redmine our internal redmine (a ruby on rails server)
• myserver.mycompany.com/opensocial a drupal website we are currently testing (a php-fpm application)

I've managed to get redmine to work under the sub-directory but not the drupal website on the sub-directory.

Any suggestions?

Here's a simplified version of my default vhost:

server {
    
    # server name and ssl stuff

    root /var/www/html;

    ## REDMINE
    location ~ ^/redmine(/.*|$) {
            alias /opt/redmine/public$1;
            passenger_base_uri /redmine;
            passenger_app_root /opt/redmine;
            passenger_document_root /opt/redmine/public;
            passenger_enabled on;
    }
    ## END REDMINE


    ## START Open Social
    location ~ ^/opensocial(/.*|$) {

            alias /var/www/opensocial/html$1;
            index index.php;

            location ~ ^/opensocial(/.*|$) {
                    try_files $uri /index.php?$query_string; # For Drupal >= 7
            }

            # From nginx's drupal config
            location ~ '\.php$|^/update.php' {
                    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(|/.*)$;
                    # Ensure the php file exists. Mitigates CVE-2019-11043
                    try_files $fastcgi_script_name =404;
                    # Security note: If you're running a version of PHP older than the
                    # latest 5.3, you should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini.
                    # See http://serverfault.com/q/627903/94922 for details.
                    include fastcgi_params;
                    # Block httpoxy attacks. See https://httpoxy.org/.
                    fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
                    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
                    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
                    fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
                    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
                    # PHP 7 socket location.
                    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
            }

    }
    ## END OF Open Social

Thanks

Answer 1

This is mostly comment (but space limited in the comment box)

I've managed to get redmine to work under the sub-directory but not the drupal website

What happened at the browser when you tried to access the drupal URLs? What did your logs say?

location ~ ^/opensocial(/.*|$) {
            alias /var/www/opensocial/html$1;

this is horrible. I'm guessing that you really REALLY want to manage the paths to the 2 applications independently. Is there a VERY GOOD reason you don't just use

location /opensocial {

?

While you're using a similar pattern for redmine you do have it installed in a different location. I'm not familiar with how passenger works, but would have expected the passenger_base_uri to make the regex and alias redundant.

Personally I would have gone with 3 separate server{} instances and put a proxy on ports 80 & 443 - the overhead from the additional hop is negligible and there are benefits of scaling, security and management.

Answer 2

Based on @symcbean answer, I created a proxy server for each application.

My problem now is 404s on internal links and resources from the drupal website, but I guess that's an application problem.

Here's my new vhost:

server {

        # server name and ssl stuff

        root /var/www/html;

        location /redmine {
                proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        }

        location /opensocial {
                proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8001;
        }

}

## REDMINE
server {
        listen 127.0.0.1:8000;
        root /opt/redmine/public;
        passenger_base_uri /redmine;
        passenger_app_root /opt/redmine;
        passenger_document_root /opt/redmine/public;
        passenger_enabled on;
}


## OPEN SOCIAL
server {
        listen 127.0.0.1:8001;
        root /var/www/opensocial/html;

        location / {
                try_files $uri /index.php?$query_string;
        }

        location ~ '\.php$|^/update.php' {
                fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(|/.*)$;
                # Ensure the php file exists. Mitigates CVE-2019-11043
                try_files $fastcgi_script_name =404;
                # Security note: If you're running a version of PHP older than the
                # latest 5.3, you should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini.
                # See http://serverfault.com/q/627903/94922 for details.
                include fastcgi_params;
                # Block httpoxy attacks. See https://httpoxy.org/.
                fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
                fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
                fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
                fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
                fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
                # PHP 7 socket location.
                fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
        }


}

Please comment if you there's anything I can do better.