DotKernel on Nginx

Due to the fact that the current buzzword is Nginx instead of Apache, we decided to test if Dotkernel is running out of the box on it. And how to configure Nginx 🙂

1. Installed on a clean Centos 6.3 VPS : Nginx 1.4.1 , PHP 5.4.16 , PHP-FPM
2. Installed PHP modules: APC, GeoIP and such.
3. Installed PEAR and Zend Framework from http://code.google.com/p/zend/
4. Fine tune php.ini file: date, default charset, include path, etc
5. Create on a remote server a MySql database, allow permissions from Nginx server  IP to connect to it.
6. Now the fine part: editing the Nginx config ( in our case /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf)
   • Set server name:

     server_name  nginx.dotkernel.net;

   • Set document root , in the location / area

     root   /var/www/html;

   • Equivalent of the main .htaccess file is

     try_files	$uri $uri/ /index.php;

     This directive will send all requests to index.php file

   • Set the location for php directive

         location ~ \.php$ {
                root           /var/www/html;
                fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
                fastcgi_index  index.php;
                fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  /var/www/html$fastcgi_script_name;
                fastcgi_param APPLICATION_ENV staging;
                include        fastcgi_params;
                 }

     In the lines above , you can change the value for APPLICATION_ENV into production or development

   • Protect configs folder from web access

     #protect folders
     location ~ ^/configs/ {
             deny all;
      }

7.   Export a DotKernel copy from SVN

   svn export --force  http://v1.dotkernel.net/svn/trunk/ /var/www/html

8. Edit application.ini to reflect the current settings and check if is  protected
   http://nginx.dotkernel.net/configs/application.ini
9. And walla, site is running on Nginx       http://nginx.dotkernel.net/
   Admin login is disabled due to security reason.