No Input File Specified Error When Visiting Non-Existent URL's with .php Extensions

Question

Having an issue with my NGINX configuration whereby when I visit a URL with a .php extension that doesn't exist, instead of a 404 response I get a 'No input file specified.' error. Below is my NGINX config, any ideas what might be going on?

html {
    # Compression

    # Enable Gzip compressed.
    gzip on;

    # Enable compression both for HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1.
    gzip_http_version 1.1;

    # Compression level (1-9).
    # 5 is a perfect compromise between size and cpu usage, offering about
    # 75% reduction for most ascii files (almost identical to level 9).
    gzip_comp_level 5;

    # Don't compress anything that's already small and unlikely to shrink much
    # if at all (the default is 20 bytes, which is bad as that usually leads to
    # larger files after gzipping).
    gzip_min_length 128;

    # Compress data even for clients that are connecting to us via proxies,
    # identified by the "Via" header (required for CloudFront).
    gzip_proxied any;

    # Tell proxies to cache both the gzipped and regular version of a resource
    # whenever the client's Accept-Encoding capabilities header varies;
    # Avoids the issue where a non-gzip capable client (which is extremely rare
    # today) would display gibberish if their proxy gave them the gzipped version.
    gzip_vary on;

    # Compress all output labeled with one of the following MIME-types.
    gzip_types application/atom+xml application/x-javascript application/javascript application/json application/rss+xml application/vnd.ms-fontobject application/x-font-ttf application/x-web-app-manifest+json application/xhtml+xml application/xml font/opentype image/svg+xml image/x-icon text/css text/plain text/x-component;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name www.example.com example.com;
    return 301 https://example.com$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen *:443 ssl;
    server_name www.example.com;
    return https://example.com$request_uri 301;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.com;
    root /home/example/default/public;

    index index.html index.htm index.php;

    charset utf-8;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location = /robots.txt  { access_log off; log_not_found off; }

    access_log off;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx/default-error.log error;

    error_page 404 /index.php;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_param DB_PASSWORD "password";
        fastcgi_param DB_USERNAME "user";
        fastcgi_param DB_NAME "db";
        fastcgi_param DB_HOST "localhost";
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    # Expire rules for static content

    # cache.appcache, your document html and data
    location ~* \.(?:manifest|appcache|html?|xml|json)$ {
      expires -1;
      # access_log logs/static.log; # I don't usually include a static log
    }

    # Feed
    location ~* \.(?:rss|atom)$ {
      expires 1h;
      add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }

    # Media: images, icons, video, audio, HTC
    location ~* \.(?:jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|cur|gz|svg|svgz|mp4|ogg|ogv|webm|htc)$ {
      expires 1M;
      access_log off;
      add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }

    # CSS and Javascript
    location ~* \.(?:css|js)$ {
      expires 1y;
      access_log off;
      add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }
}

Answer 1

For your purposes, adding:

fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;

...to your location ~ \.php$ { block should solve the problem. PHP needs this variable to be equal to the absolute file system path to the PHP script to be executed, and exactly what you want depends on your configuration. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to what the correct way to configure SCRIPT_FILENAME.

Some of the variables that can be used are discussed here: https://serverfault.com/a/496031

Exactly what you want for a given scenario depends on many factors such as whether you are mapping to a directory that is not $document_root, whether fpm is chrooted, etc.

But for the case you describe, I think the above should solve your problem.