Nginx XenForo SEO-Friendly URLs

Nginx Rewrites for XenForo Friendly URLs

For XenForo to use Friendly URLs via mod_rewrite you will find official Nginx rewrite rules here. You will need to add additional Nginx rewrite rules within your domain's Nginx vhost configuration file /usr/local/nginx/conf/conf.d/newdomain.com.conf. This file is created when you use Centmin Mod's menu option #2 to 'Add Nginx vhost domain'. Below Nginx rewrite rules are provided as-is, without support. If you need further help ask on Nginx forums or XenForo's Server Configuration and Hosting forums.

XenForo Permissions

If you are using Centmin Mod 123.09beta01+ or higher, it has a tools/autoprotect.sh cronjob to auto-protect your non-public web directories which have .htaccess 'deny from all' files. This can falsely block XenForo setups. You need to add .autoprotect-bypass files to XenForo directories. For XenForo 2 you need one bypass for /src directory too:

touch /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/library/.autoprotect-bypass
touch /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/internal_data/.autoprotect-bypass
touch /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/install/data/.autoprotect-bypass
touch /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/install/templates/.autoprotect-bypass
touch /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/src/.autoprotect-bypass

Backup your web root file and directory permissions before changing them:

getfacl -R -L --absolute-names /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public > /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/backup/backup-permissions-$(date +"%d%m%y-%H%M%S").acl

Set correct file and directory permissions on XenForo installation:

find /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0644
find /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/ -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0755
find /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/internal_data/ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0777
find /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/data/ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0777
find /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/internal_data/ -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0777
find /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public/data/ -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0777
chmod 0755 /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public

open_basedir Restrictions

If you run XenForo 1.5 or XenForo Media Gallery Addon, you may encounter open_basedir restriction in effect errors. See FAQ item 26 for how to disable open_basedir globally or per Nginx vhost. The relevant line is in /usr/local/nginx/conf/php.conf:

fastcgi_param PHP_ADMIN_VALUE open_basedir=$document_root/:/usr/local/lib/php/:/tmp/;

Setting Up MySQL Database Settings

XenForo uses InnoDB MySQL Engine tables for best performance. Ensure your /etc/my.cnf has:

innodb=ON
default-storage-engine = InnoDB

For UTF-8 support, add under [mysqld] in /etc/my.cnf:

[mysqld]
 character-set-server=utf8

Then restart MySQL: service mysql restart or shortcut mysqlrestart

XenForo Media Gallery Addon & FFMPEG

If you run XenForo Media Gallery Addon, install the static FFMPEG binary and set the path in admin settings:

cd /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com

# Download and extract static FFMPEG binary
if [ "$(uname -m)" = 'x86_64' ]; then
  wget -cnv https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/releases/ffmpeg-release-amd64-static.tar.xz
  tar xJvf ffmpeg-release-amd64-static.tar.xz
else
  wget https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/releases/ffmpeg-release-i686-static.tar.xz
  tar xJvf ffmpeg-release-i686-static.tar.xz
fi

# Rename and set permissions
mv ffmpeg-*-amd64-static staticffmpeg
chown -R nginx:nginx staticffmpeg

FFMPEG binary path: /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/staticffmpeg/ffmpeg

Nginx Rewrites for XenForo Friendly URLs

If XenForo is installed in public web root at /home/nginx/domains/newdomain.com/public, add these rewrites to /usr/local/nginx/conf/conf.d/newdomain.com.conf. Replace your existing location / {} context. For XenForo 2.x uncomment the 3 lines for /src/ location:

location / {
    index index.php index.html index.htm;
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$uri&$args;
}

location /install/data/ {
    internal;
}

location /install/templates/ {
    internal;
}

location /internal_data/ {
    internal;
}

location /library/ {
    internal;
}

# XenForo 2 uncomment / remove hash from next 3 lines
#location /src/ {
#    internal;
#}