NGINX Cookbook

How to do it...

In order to convert the 404 requests into arguments, here's our server directive:

server { 
    listen       80; 
    server_name  demosite.nginxcookbook.com; 
 
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/demosite.access.log  combined; 
    index index.php; 
 
    root   /var/www/vhosts/demosite; 
 
    error_page 404 @404page; 
 
    location @404page { 
        try_files $uri $uri/ /search.php?uri=$uri&$args; 
    } 
 
    location ~ \.php$ { 
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php7.0-fpm.sock; 
        fastcgi_index index.php; 
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name; 
        include fastcgi_params; 
 
        try_files $uri $uri/ /search.php?uri=$uri&$args; 
    } 
} 

In this server block, we've assumed that the site uses PHP, but static files with a search file just for the 404 errors will also work.