Magento Nginx sub-page rewrites - magento

Question

I am in the process of switching from Apache to Nginx for Magento but cannot seem to get it set up and working correctly. I have installed everything on a test server and the magento install went fine and I can access both the home page and the admin panel correctly but if I navigate to any sub-page from the frontend, the URL loses the "index.php" and gives me a 500 internal server error. For example if I try /magento/contacts/ I get a 500 error but if I add /magento/index.php/contacts/ it loads.
I have tried countless different nginx configurations but none have worked. I have trawled the posts on here relating to the same issue but no joy. My last hope is to post my config file on here and hope that someone can help!
I followed this: https://gist.github.com/tegansnyder/96d1be1dd65852d3e576 tutorial to the letter and everything works great except the problem above.
Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated! I'm tearing my hair out here! Thanks in advance!
I have two config files:
FIRST CONFIG FILE
server {
server_name 192.121.166.136;
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log info;
# 504 is a PHP timeout and must be static
# 502 is momentary during a PHP restart and should be treated like maintenance
# other 50x errors are handled by Magento
error_page 502 504 /var/www/magento/504.html;
listen 80;
#listen 443 ssl;
# if you are using a load balancer uncomment these lines
# header from the hardware load balancers
#real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For;
# trust this header from anything inside the subnet
#set_real_ip_from X.X.X.1/24;
# the header is a comma-separated list; the left-most IP is the end user
#real_ip_recursive on;
# ensure zero calls are written to disk
client_max_body_size 16m;
client_body_buffer_size 2m;
client_header_buffer_size 16k;
large_client_header_buffers 8 8k;
root /var/www/;
index index.php;
fastcgi_read_timeout 90s;
fastcgi_send_timeout 60s;
# ensure zero calls are written to disk
fastcgi_buffers 512 16k;
fastcgi_buffer_size 512k;
fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 512k;
# remove the cache-busting timestamp
location ~* (.+)\.(\d+)\.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif)$ {
try_files $uri $1.$3;
access_log off;
log_not_found off;
expires 21d;
add_header Cache-Control "public";
}
# do not log static files; regexp should capture alternate cache-busting timestamps
location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|txt|swf|xml|svg|svgz|mp4|ogg|ogv)(\?[0-9]+)?$ {
access_log off;
log_not_found off;
expires 21d;
add_header Cache-Control "public";
}
# Server
include main.conf;
include security.conf;
}
SECOND CONFIG FILE
rewrite_log on;
location / {
index index.php;
try_files $uri $uri/ #handler;
}
location #handler {
rewrite / /index.php;
}
## force www in the URL
if ($host !~* ^www\.) {
#rewrite / $scheme://www.$host$request_uri permanent;
}
## Forward paths like /js/index.php/x.js to relevant handler
location ~ \.php/ {
rewrite ^(.*\.php)/ $1 last;
}
location /media/catalog/ {
expires 1y;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location /skin/ {
expires 1y;
}
location /js/ {
access_log off;
}
location ~ \.php$ { ## Execute PHP scripts
if (!-e $request_filename) { rewrite / /index.php last; } ## Catch 404s that try_files miss
expires off; ## Do not cache dynamic content
# for this tutorial we are going to use a unix socket
# but if HHVM was running on another host we could forego unix socket
# in favor of an IP address and port number as follows:
#fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:8080;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/hhvm/sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
#fastcgi_param HTTPS $fastcgi_https;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
# if you need to explictly specify a store code for Magento do it here
# this is useful if you are running multiple stores with different hostnames
#fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_CODE default;
#fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_TYPE store;
include fastcgi_params; ## See /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params
fastcgi_keep_conn on; #hhvm param
}

Answer 1

The problem was that my store was in /var/www/magento. Moved the files to just /var/www and all is good :) Thank for the help guys.

Answer 2

Please have a complete reading of this document: http://info.magento.com/rs/magentocommerce/images/MagentoECG-PoweringMagentowithNgnixandPHP-FPM.pdf where you can find a basic NGINX configuration specifically for Magento:
server {
listen 80 default;
# like ServerName in Apache
server_name magento.lan www.magento.lan;
# document root, path to directory with files
root /var/www/magento;
index index.html index.php;
# we don’t want users to see files in directories
autoindex off;
location ~ (^/(app/\|includes/\|lib/\|/pkginfo/\|var/\|report/config.
xml)\|/\.svn/\|/\.git/\|/.hta.+) {
#ensure sensitive files are not accessible
deny all;
}
location / {
# make index.php handle requests for /
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
# do not log access to static files
access_log off;
# cache static files aggressively
expires max;
}
location \~\* \.(jpeg\|jpg\|gif\|png\|css\|js\|ico\|swf)$ {
# look for static files in root directory
# and ask backend if not successful
try_files $uri $uri/ #proxy;
expires max;
access_log off;
}
location #proxy {
# proxy everything from this location to backend
fastcgi_pass fpm_backend;
}
location \~\.php$ {
# if reference to php executable is invalid return 404
try_files $uri =404;
# no need to cache php executable files
expires off;
fastcgi_read_timeout 600;
# proxy all requests for dynamic content to
fastcgi_pass fpm_backend;
# backend configured in upstream.conf
fastcgi_keep_conn on; # use persistent connects to backend
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root${fastcgi_script_name};
# Store code is defined in
# administration > Configuration > Manage Stores
fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_CODE default;
fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_TYPE store;
}
}