1. Setting error handler

Error handler can be set with the error_page directive. More about this directive you can find here.

Do this in your server block but better use a generic file and include this in every virtual host server block. I use for this a file “vhost” with all such settings.

The handler or html files are placed in a separate folder outside the webs. You can use a folder inside your Nginx settings (I use here for example a “html” folder).

The location block is needed to pass the correct root and file to php fastcgi. In this example I use a file “fastcgi”  with this mostly used lines:

fastcgi_pass   unix:/tmp/fastcgi.socket;
fastcgi_index  index.php;
fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;

Here the part in the server block (or in your generic vhost file for including):

# error handler, codes can also be combined
error_page 401 /error.php?c=401;
error_page 403 /error.php?c=403;
error_page 404 /error.php?c=404;
error_page 500 /error.php?c=500;
error_page 502 503 504 /error.php?c=50x;

# serve error.php from /etc/nginx/html folder
location =/error.php {
   root /etc/nginx/html;
   include conf/fastcgi;
}

2. PHP file

The error.php file will be called with the URL encoded error-code, so its easy to grab this code in the PHP file from the superglobal $_GET array.

To map this error code to a message string, use a associative array and a function to return the string.

This is the part in the error.php file:

 "Autorisierung erforderlich! - Authorization Required",
    "403" => "Zugriff ist nicht erlaubt! - Access forbidden",
    "404" => "Seite wurde nicht gefunden - Page not found",
    "500" => "Interner Serverfehler - Internal Server Error",
    "50x" => "Seite ist momentan nicht verfügbar. Bitte Anfrage später wiederholen.
-
The page is temporarily unavailable. Try again later.");

// get the error string
function errorString($error) {
    global $_err;

    foreach ($_err as $key => $val) {
        if ($key == $error)
            return $val;
    }

    return "Unknown Error";
}

isset($_GET['c']) or die("Unknown Error");
$error = $_GET['c'];
$str = errorString($error);

?>

Error <?=$error?>: <?=$str?>

You can format the error page as you like. But remember: the web root url will be the actual virtual host! Easiest way: use inline CSS. If this is not your preferred way, place the css file in a virtual host (eg. your default virtual host)

http://mysite.com/phpmyadmin

The location will be append to the root! For a similar behaviour like the Apache configuration, you could use the “alias” directive

My phpmyadmin installation is under /usr/share/phpmyadmin, thats why I use /usr/share as the root.

server{
...
    location /phpmyadmin{
        root    /usr/share;
        index   index.php;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        set $php_root   $document_root;
            if ($request_uri ~* /phpmyadmin) {
                set $php_root /usr/share;
           }

        fastcgi_pass   unix:/tmp/fastcgi.socket;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $php_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
    }
}