nginx: [emerg] "location" directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:1

Question

I am just starting out with Nginx on AWS AMI instance, and am stuck with some starting problems.

I have followed this link to install php-fpm and nginx https://gist.github.com/sumardi/5559803

Except, I don't need mysql, so I didn't run this command sudo yum -y install mysql-server mysql

My /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf looks like this:

location / {
    root   /var/www/html;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
    fastcgi_pass    unix:/var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_index   index.php;
    fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME  /usr/share/nginx/
                    html$fastcgi_script_name;
    include         fastcgi_params;
}

My /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf

; Start a new pool named 'www'.
[www]

; The address on which to accept FastCGI requests.
; Valid syntaxes are:
;   'ip.add.re.ss:port'    - to listen on a TCP socket to a specific address on
;                            a specific port;
;   'port'                 - to listen on a TCP socket to all addresses on a
;                            specific port;
;   '/path/to/unix/socket' - to listen on a unix socket.
; Note: This value is mandatory.
;listen = 127.0.0.1:9000
listen = /var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock
; Set listen(2) backlog. A value of '-1' means unlimited.
; Default Value: -1
;listen.backlog = -1

; List of ipv4 addresses of FastCGI clients which are allowed to connect.
; Equivalent to the FCGI_WEB_SERVER_ADDRS environment variable in the original
; PHP FCGI (5.2.2+). Makes sense only with a tcp listening socket. Each address
; must be separated by a comma. If this value is left blank, connections will be
; accepted from any ip address.
; Default Value: any
listen.allowed_clients = 127.0.0.1

; Set permissions for unix socket, if one is used. In Linux, read/write
; permissions must be set in order to allow connections from a web server. Many
; BSD-derived systems allow connections regardless of permissions.
; Default Values: user and group are set as the running user
;                 mode is set to 0666
;listen.owner = nobody
listen.owner = nginx
;listen.group = nobody
listen.group = nginx
;listen.mode = 0666
listen.mode = 0664

; Unix user/group of processes
; Note: The user is mandatory. If the group is not set, the default user's group
; RPM: apache Choosed to be able to access some dir as httpd
user = nginx
; RPM: Keep a group allowed to write in log dir.
group = nginx

; Choose how the process manager will control the number of child processes.
; Possible Values:
;   static  - a fixed number (pm.max_children) of child processes;
;   dynamic - the number of child processes are set dynamically based on the
;             following directives:
;             pm.max_children      - the maximum number of children that can
;                                    be alive at the same time.
;             pm.start_servers     - the number of children created on startup.
;             pm.min_spare_servers - the minimum number of children in 'idle'
;                                    state (waiting to process). If the number
;                                    of 'idle' processes is less than this
;                                    number then some children will be created.
;             pm.max_spare_servers - the maximum number of children in 'idle'
;                                    state (waiting to process). If the number
; Note: This value is mandatory.
pm = dynamic

; The number of child processes to be created when pm is set to 'static' and the
; maximum number of child processes to be created when pm is set to 'dynamic'.
; This value sets the limit on the number of simultaneous requests that will be
; served. Equivalent to the ApacheMaxClients directive with mpm_prefork.
; Equivalent to the PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN environment variable in the original PHP
; Note: Used when pm is set to either 'static' or 'dynamic'
; Note: This value is mandatory.
pm.max_children = 50

; The number of child processes created on startup.
; Note: Used only when pm is set to 'dynamic'
; Default Value: min_spare_servers + (max_spare_servers - min_spare_servers) / 2
pm.start_servers = 5

; The desired minimum number of idle server processes.
; Note: Used only when pm is set to 'dynamic'
; Note: Mandatory when pm is set to 'dynamic'
pm.min_spare_servers = 5

; The desired maximum number of idle server processes.
; Note: Used only when pm is set to 'dynamic'
; Note: Mandatory when pm is set to 'dynamic'
pm.max_spare_servers = 35

; The number of requests each child process should execute before respawning.
; This can be useful to work around memory leaks in 3rd party libraries. For
; endless request processing specify '0'. Equivalent to PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS.
; Default Value: 0
;pm.max_requests = 500

; The URI to view the FPM status page. If this value is not set, no URI will be
; recognized as a status page. By default, the status page shows the following
; information:
;   accepted conn    - the number of request accepted by the pool;
[....]

How ever, I can see when I call .php files, it just downloads. And when I run service nginx start I get the following error:

nginx: [emerg] "location" directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:1
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

Please help

Answer 1

This was how I was able to fix the issue. Server tag should enclose everything else in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

server {

        location / {
                root   /var/www/html;
                index  index.php index.html index.htm;
        }

        location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass    unix:/var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
            fastcgi_index   index.php;
            fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME  /usr/share/nginx/html$fastcgi_script_name;
            include         fastcgi_params;
         }

}