title: How do I configure nginx rewrite rules to get CakePHP working on CentOS?
body: <p>Hi somebody please help me out, I’m trying to setup a cakephp environment on a Centos server running Nginx with Fact CGI. I already have a wordpress site running on the server and a phpmyadmin site so I have PHP configured correctly. </p>
  
  <p>My problem is that I cannot get the rewrite rules setup correct in my vhost so that cake renders pages correctly i.e. with styling and so on. I’ve googled as much as possible and the main consensus from the sites like the one listed below is that I need to have the following rewrite rule in place </p>
  
  <pre><code>location / {
            root   /var/www/sites/somedomain.com/current;
            index  index.php index.html;
  
            # If the file exists as a static file serve it 
            # directly without running all
            # the other rewrite tests on it
            if (-f $request_filename) { 
              break; 
            }
            if (!-f $request_filename) {
              rewrite ^/(.+)$ /index.php?url=$1 last;
              break;
            }
          }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><a href="http://blog.getintheloop.eu/2008/4/17/nginx-engine-x-rewrite-rules-for-cakephp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://blog.getintheloop.eu/2008/4/17/nginx-engine-x-rewrite-rules-for-cakephp</a></p>
  
  <p>problem is these rewrite assume you run cake directly out of the webroot which is not what I want to do. I have a standard setup for each site i.e. one folder per site containing the following folders log, backup, private and public. Public being where nginx is looking for its files to serve but I have cake installed in private with a symlink in public linking back to /private/cake/</p>
  
  <p>this is my vhost</p>
  
  <pre><code>server {
              listen      80;
              server_name app.domain.com;
  
              access_log /home/public_html/app.domain.com/log/access.log;
              error_log /home/public_html/app.domain.com/log/error.log;
  
    #configure Cake app to run in a sub-directory
    #Cake install is not in root, but elsewhere and configured
    #in APP/webroot/index.php**
  
                  location /home/public_html/app.domain.com/private/cake {
                  index index.php;
  
      if (!-e $request_filename) {
          rewrite ^/(.+)$ /home/public_html/app.domain.com/private/cake/$1 last;
          break;
      }
  }
  
                  location /home/public_html/app.domain.com/private/cake/ {
                  index index.php;
  
      if (!-e $request_filename) {
          rewrite ^/(.+)$ /home/public_html/app.domain.com/public/index.php?url=$1 last;
          break;
          }
  }
  
           # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
          location ~ \.php$ {
              fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
              fastcgi_index  index.php;
              fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME /home/public_html/app.domain.com/private/cake$fastcgi_script_name;
              include        /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
          }
  
   }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now like I said I can see the main index.php of cake and have connected it to my DB but this page is without styling so before I proceed any further I would like to configure it correctly. What am I doing wrong?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks seanl</p>