laravel-subdirectory.conf

server {
    client_body_in_file_only clean;
    client_body_buffer_size 32K;

    client_max_body_size 300M;

    sendfile on;
    send_timeout 300s;
    # Port that the web server will listen on.
    #listen          80;

    # Host that will serve this project.
    server_name     tsolar.com;

    # Useful logs for debug.
    access_log      /var/log/nginx/tsolar.com-access.log;
    error_log       /var/log/nginx/tsolar.com-error.log;
    rewrite_log     on;

    # The location of our projects public directory.
    root            /home/tom/public_html/demos/;

    # Point index to the Laravel front controller.
    index           index.php;

    location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|html)$ {
	access_log off;
  	expires max;
    }

    location / {

        # URLs to attempt, including pretty ones.
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
    }

    # Remove trailing slash to please routing system.
    if (!-d $request_filename) {
        rewrite     ^/(.+)/$ /$1 permanent;
    }

    # version 1
    location ^~ /demo1 {
        alias /home/tom/public_html/demos/demo1/public;
        try_files $uri $uri/ @demo1;

        location ~* \.php {
            fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
            fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(.*)$;
            include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        }
    }

    location @demo1 {
        rewrite ^/demo1/(.*)$ /demo1/index.php/$1 last; # THIS IS THE IMPORTANT LINE
    }
    # end version 1

    # version 2
    # this is with `ln -s /home/tom/public_html/demos/demo1/public <document root>/demo1`
    location ~ /demo1 {
        try_files /demo1/$uri /demo1/$uri/ /demo1/index.php?q=$uri&$args;
    }
    # end version 2


    # PHP FPM configuration.
    location ~* \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass                    unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        include             				/etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_index           			index.php;
        fastcgi_split_path_info     		^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO     		$fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED 		$document_root$fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME 		$document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

    # We don't need .ht files with nginx.
    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    # Set header expirations on per-project basis
    location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|jpe?g|JPG|png|svg|woff)$ {
        expires 365d;
    }
}