## Serving ProjectExplorer's PHP elements with nginx
Because ProjectExplorer is mostly static files + javascript, you actually **don't** need a webserver for most of the functionalities.
However, some elements rely on a PHP server and won't work without it:
- the topPapers backend under `twbackends/phpAPI` that can be used for relatedDocs queries in CSV or CortextDB databases
- the crowdsourcingModule under `twmodules/crowdsourcingModule` that can be used to save user suggestions
If you need to configure that kind of a server, we provide two examples, supposing:
- you cloned the ProjectExplorer distribution in /absolute/path/to/ProjectExplorer
- you installed php fpm (`sudo apt install php7.0-fpm`)
#### Exemple 1
In case of an nginx normal "`location`" configuration, something like this is the working minimal conf at time of writing:
```
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;
# ---------------------------------
root /absolute/path/to/ProjectExplorer;
# ---------------------------------
server_name _;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on php7.0-fpm.sock
#
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
}
}
```
#### Exemple 2
And in case of an nginx "`alias`" configuration, the path must be reconstructed by matching the entire path in a regexp without the alias part to get the correct relative path to the script. Something like this works:
```
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80 default_server;
root /somewhere_else_like_a_previous_website ;
location /myalias {
# ---------------------------------
alias /absolute/path/to/ProjectExplorer ;
# ---------------------------------
# (we use a regexp to capture the appropriate path into $1)
location ~ ^/myalias/(.+\.php)$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $DOCUMENT_ROOT/$1;
}
}
}
```
Refer to the [NGINX official documentation about PHP](https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/examples/phpfcgi/) for more information.
#### Path coherence
For API queries, the route prefix is set in ProjectExplorer's settings found under the entry `TWConf.relatedDocsAPIS`. **The rule to follow is to make sure that `$DOCUMENT_ROOT + '/' + TWConf.relatedDocsAPIS[yourdbtype]` forms a valid route to the PHP files in your project dirs.**
@@ -12,37 +12,32 @@ Main use case is support for one-doc-by-row CSV files.
You need any kind of php server support with php > 5.0.
For instance on an ubuntu 16 with an nginx server, I'd install php 7 fpm:
```
sudo apt install php7.0-fpm
```
For instance on an ubuntu 16 with an nginx server, I would:
- install php 7 fpm:
```
sudo apt install php7.0-fpm
```
And then add this kind of configuration entry in `nginx.conf`:
```
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
- follow **[nginx_suggestions.md](https://github.com/moma/ProjectExplorer/blob/master/00.DOCUMENTATION/C-advanced/nginx_suggestions.md)** to correctly configure the web server routes relative to my filesystem paths and `settings_explorerjs` configuration.
For more information about the nginx configuration, you can find information in [nginx_suggestions.md](https://github.com/moma/ProjectExplorer/blob/master/00.DOCUMENTATION/C-advanced/nginx_suggestions.md).
