Nginx: try_files outside location

Question

I'm configuring a pretty standard webserver using nginx. The server is working as expected, however, there is a small configuration detail I would like to understand.

My current configuration is:

index index.html index.htm index.php;

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

location ~ \.php$ {
    try_files $uri =404;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
}

With this configuration, if I access to: http://myweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/cropped-bitmap11.png/lol.php I get a 404 as expected.

However, with this configuration:

try_files $uri =404;

location ~ \.php$ {
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
}

I get a blank page with "Access denied".

Why is the result different?

Thank you

Answer 1

You are probably under the impression that try_files on server level must work for every request. Not at all. Quite the contrary, it works only for requests that match no location blocks.