Nginx downloads php instead of running it

Question

Iv'e setup an Nginx php server on a linux REHL machine. When accessing html files all goes well, but trying to access php file, the file is downloaded instead of being executed. This is my nginx.conf: ``` user nginx; worker_processes 1; error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log warn; pid /var/run/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { include /etc/nginx/mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" ' '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" ' '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"'; access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main; sendfile on; #tcp_nopush on; keepalive_timeout 65; #gzip on; include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf; } ``` ...and this is the server block: ``` server { listen 80; server_name {mywebsitename}; #access_log logs/host.access.log main; location / { root /usr/share/nginx/html/{mywebsitename}/; } location /ngx_status_2462 { stub_status on; access_log off; allow all; } location ~ \.php$ {…

Accepted Answer

I just had this exact same problem. I was using Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint 14 so different OS but likely to have the same issues.

A couple of issues may happening. Firstly, you need to have php5-fpm installed (FastCGI Process Manager). I was trying to run it with my standard version of PHP but it was not working - http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.fpm.php

I also had Apache installed, and even if it weren't running it must have had some conflict because once I uninstalled Apache I was able to execute the PHP files.

I would also look at this line

```
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
```

And consider changing it to

```
fastcgi_pass   unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
```

Here is a detailed guide to installation of Nginx and PHP5-FPM for RHEL (and other OS's)

http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2011/install-nginx-php-fpm-on-fedora-centos-red-hat-rhel/

Nginx downloads php instead of running it

Solution

Problem