WordPress-Nginx + W3 Total Cache

Update: This article is updated for new W3-Total-Cache page-cache directory structure.

Assumption:

1. You already installed PHP, MySQL, Nginx & Postfix
2. You already installed a fresh WordPress or moved an existing WordPress to current server

Based on these assumptions, we will jump to directly a WordPress-Nginx configuration part.

Standard WordPress-Nginx configuration with W3 Total Cache:

W3 Total Cache plugin provides many options. I will recommend using the given below:

• Page Cache – Disk Enhanced
• Minify – Disabled (unless you are 100% sure your theme/plugin will support it nicely)
• Database Cache – Opcode: Alternative PHP Cache (APC)
• Object Cache - Opcode: Alternative PHP Cache (APC)
• Browser Cache – Disabled
• CDN – Your Choice (Need Help?)

If you have noticed, I have highlighted two options only. These are the only two options we are  going to handle in our configuration.

server {
	server_name example.com www.example.com;

	access_log   /var/log/nginx/example.com.access.log;
	error_log    /var/log/nginx/example.com.error.log debug;

	root /var/www/example.com/htdocs;
	index index.php;

	set $cache_uri $request_uri;

	# POST requests and urls with a query string should always go to PHP
	if ($request_method = POST) {
		set $cache_uri 'null cache';
	}   
	if ($query_string != "") {
		set $cache_uri 'null cache';
	}   

	# Don't cache uris containing the following segments
	if ($request_uri ~* "(/wp-admin/|/xmlrpc.php|/wp-(app|cron|login|register|mail).php|wp-.*.php|/feed/|index.php|wp-comments-popup.php|wp-links-opml.php|wp-locations.php|sitemap(_index)?.xml|[a-z0-9_-]+-sitemap([0-9]+)?.xml)") {
		set $cache_uri 'null cache';
	}   

	# Don't use the cache for logged in users or recent commenters
	if ($http_cookie ~* "comment_author|wordpress_[a-f0-9]+|wp-postpass|wordpress_logged_in") {
		set $cache_uri 'null cache';
	}

	# Use cached or actual file if they exists, otherwise pass request to WordPress
	location / {
		try_files /wp-content/cache/page_enhanced/${host}${cache_uri}_index.html $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args ;
	}

        location ~ ^/wp-content/cache/minify/[^/]+/(.*)$ {
                try_files $uri /wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache/pub/minify.php?file=$1;
        }    

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

	location ~ .php$ {
		try_files $uri /index.php; 
		include fastcgi_params;
                fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
	}

	# Cache static files for as long as possible
	location ~* .(ogg|ogv|svg|svgz|eot|otf|woff|mp4|ttf|css|rss|atom|js|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|ppt|tar|mid|midi|wav|bmp|rtf)$ {
               expires max; log_not_found off; access_log off;
	}
}

Notes:

Don’t Forget:

Always test your Nginx configuration and then reload it. All changes to Nginx config must be follow with these commands:

nginx -t && service nginx reload

Must Read:

• Checklist For Perfect WordPress-Nginx Setup - It will help you verify if your caching will work after PHP/MySQL crash.
• Catch the complete list of WordPress-Nginx tutorials here.