mod_rewrite to nginx rewrite rules - regex

Question

I have converted most of my Apache HTTPd mod_rewrite rules over to nginx's HttpRewrite module (which calls PHP-FPM via FastCGI on every dynamic request). Simple rules which are defined by hard locations work fine:
location = /favicon.ico { rewrite ^(.*)$ /_core/frontend.php?type=ico&file=include__favicon last; }
I am still having trouble with regular expressions, which are parsed in mod_rewrite like this (note that I am accepting trailing slashes within the rules, as well as appending the query string to every request):
mod_rewrite
# File handler
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\.([a-z]+)$ _core/frontend.php?type=$2&file=$1 [QSA,L]
# Page handler
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2/$3 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2/$3 [QSA,L]
I have come up with the following server configuration for the site, but I am met with unmatched rules after parsing a request (eg; GET /user/auth):
attempted nginx rewrite
location / {
# File handler
rewrite ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\.([a-z]+)?(.*)$ /_core/frontend.php?type=$2&file=$1&$3 break;
# Page handler
rewrite ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)(\/*)?(.*)$ /_core/frontend.php?route=$1&$2 break;
rewrite ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)(\/*)?(.*)$ /_core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2&$3 break;
rewrite ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)(\/*)?(.*)$ /_core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2/$3&$4 break;
}
What would you suggest for dealing with my File Handler (which is just filename.ext), and my Page Handler (which is a unique route request with up to 3 properties defined by a forward slash)?
As I haven't gotten a response from this yet, I am also unsure if this will override my PHP parser which is defined with location ~ \.php {}, which is included before these rewrite rules.
Bonus points if I can solve the parsing issues without the need to use a new rule for each number of route properties.

Answer 1

I ended up writing the following rules:
File Handler
location ~ ^/([a-zA-Z0-9-_]*)\.([a-zA-Z0-9]*)$ { include /web/_config/php.conf; rewrite ^/([a-zA-Z0-9-_]*)\.([a-zA-Z0-9]*)$ /_core/frontend.php?type=$2&file=$1 last; }
The file handler grabs the name and extension and writes it into type={ext}&file={name}.
Page Handler
location ~ ^/([a-z0-9-_]*)$ { include /web/_config/php.conf; rewrite ^/([a-z0-9-_]*)$ /_core/frontend.php?route=$1 last; }
location ~ ^/([a-z0-9-_]*)/?([a-z0-9-_]*)$ { include /web/_config/php.conf; rewrite ^/([a-z0-9-_]*)/?([a-z0-9-_]*)$ /_core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2 last; }
location ~ ^/([a-z0-9-_]*)/?([a-z0-9-_]*)/?([a-z0-9-_]*)$ { include /web/_config/php.conf; rewrite ^/([a-z0-9-_]*)/?([a-z0-9-_]*)/?([a-z0-9-_]*)$ /_core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2/$3 last; }
The page handler (which in this case handles up to 3 "directories") grabs the string between each separator(/), does a regex-validation and writes it as a query string.
The main difference between this and my original configuration was that each entry has its own location handler, with the last rule it processes it on the first match, so performance should be slightly better.
I also discovered that nginx appends query strings by default, so that regex isn't required, another performance improvement.
Note that /web/_config/php.conf is simply a FastCGI pass-through configuration, and the one shipped with nginx (usually /etc/nginx/fastcgi.conf) should work fine. Note that if you're dealing exclusively with PHP, you don't need to define this in each rule, just prepend them with the include.
Hope this helps.