đź”’ EXCLUSIVE: Wordpress nginx/tutorials/multisite/subdomains/wp super cache - Uncensored 2025
Update: This article is updated for WordPress 3.5 multisite’s file-handling.
easyengine (ee) note: If you are using easyengine, you can accomplish everything in this article using following command:
ee site create example.com --wpsubdom --wpsc

In this article, we will setup WordPress Multisite using subdomains with Nginx with added support for WP Super Cache Plugin.
Nginx Config
Below is recommended Nginx configuration.
server {
##DM - uncomment following line for domain mapping
#listen 80 default_server;
server_name example.com *.example.com ;
##DM - uncomment following line for domain mapping
#server_name_in_redirect off;
access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.error.log;
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 $cache_uri 'NULL';
}
if ($query_string != "") {
set $cache_uri 'NULL';
}
# Don't cache uris containing the following segments
if ($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 $cache_uri 'NULL';
}
# Don't use the cache for logged in users or recent commenters
if ($http_cookie ~* "comment_author|wordpress_[a-f0-9]+|wp-postpass|wordpress_logged_in") {
set $cache_uri 'NULL';
}
# Use cached or actual file if they exists, otherwise pass request to WordPress
location / {
try_files /wp-content/cache/supercache/$http_host/$cache_uri/index.html $uri $uri/ /index.php ;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri =404;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
#following line is needed by WP SUPER CACHE plugin
fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $http_host;
}
location ~* ^.+.(ogg|ogv|svg|svgz|eot|otf|woff|mp4|ttf|rss|atom|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|ppt|tar|mid|midi|wav|bmp|rtf)$ {
access_log off; log_not_found off; expires max;
}
location = /robots.txt { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
location ~ /. { deny all; access_log off; log_not_found off; }
location ^~ /wp-content/cache/ { deny all; access_log off; log_not_found off; }
}
Domain Mapping
You need to uncomment few lines in above nginx-config to get domain-mapping working. Apart from above config changes, you can read this guide to setup/configure domain-mapping.
Must Read:
- Checklist For Perfect WordPress-Nginx Setup – It will help you verify if your caching will work after PHP/MySQL crash.
- Nginx Maps for Better Static File Handling in WordPress-Multisite – useful for multisite created before WordPress 3.5 released
- WordPress-Nginx tutorials
Comments
Great series the “WordPress Nginx Tutorials”. Well done and an interesting approach.
But i have 3 questions.
1) Why will “/index.php?$args” break WP Super Cache?
I have a different setup for “Nginx + WordPress Multisite Subdomains + Domain Mapping Plugin + WP Super Cache”, similar to http://codex.wordpress.org/Nginx, and passing the $query_string to index.php doesn’t break WP Super Cache. It works all the same.
2) Why is “fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $http_host” essential for WP Super Cache?
I don’t use it and it works all the same with the default setting in fastcgi.conf: “fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $server_name”
3) What is this block for “location ^~ /blogs.dir { … }”
The request “/blogs.dir” shouldn’t exist, right? Why have a location for it? It should return 404.
Maybe i’m wrong and you are right, but please explain. Thank you.
Salutations.
—
Gonçalo Peres
Thanks Gonçalo. I will answer your questions 1-by-1 🙂 #1. Why will
/index.php?$argsbreak WP Super Cache? If you enable debugging logs for WP Super Cache, you will seeSupercache caching disabled. Only using wp-cache. Non empty GET request.in error messages.?$argswill force WP Supercache to dropback to legacy mode in which it does low-performance caching. Ideally, you should be able to see a cached page, even if PHP crashes. Using/index.php?$argswill throw bad-gateway error as PHP is used for caching (PHP-involvement degrades caching performance) I have published a checklist for perfect nginx setup. It has a simple test to verify if WP Super cache running to its full potential. #2. Why is “fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $http_host” essential for WP Super Cache? WP Super Cache uses PHP’s