nginx wordpress permalinks day and name

You should avoid using if directive if possible. The above Apache's rewrite rules can be convert to Nginx syntax as belows:

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;

There's already thorough documentation on Wordpress with Nginx: http://wiki.nginx.org/Wordpress

There's no reason to try and reinvent the wheel, and certainly no need for a compatibility module.

If you just want WordPress's permalink to work with nginx, you can try using the plugin for WP at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nginx-compatibility/

after a ton more research I was able to get it working by using the following. Here is the domain's config:

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name *.noconformity.co noconformity.co;
  root /srv/www/www.noconformity.co;
  access_log /var/log/nginx-hosts/www_noconformity.co.access;
  error_log /var/log/nginx-hosts/www_noconformity.co.error error;

  error_page 400 401 402 403 404 500 502 503 504 /error.htm;
  location  /error.htm {
    internal;
  }
  # ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # remove all sub domains and www
    if ($http_host !~* "^(sub1|sub2)\.noconformity\.co$"){
        set $rule_0 1$rule_0;
    }
    if ($http_host ~ "^([^.]+)\.noconformity\.co$"){
        set $rule_0 2$rule_0;
    }
    if ($rule_0 = "21"){
        rewrite ^/(.*)$ http://noconformity.co/$1 permanent;
        break;
    }

    include /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress.conf;

}

with an include to all of the shared wordpress configurations:

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
location / {
    index index.html index.php index.htm;
    location ~* ^.*\.php$ {
        include        fastcgi_params;
            fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
            fastcgi_index  index.php;
            fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        }
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
# serve favicon
location = /favicon.ico { 
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
# process robots.txt
location = /robots.txt {
    allow all;
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
# serve static files directly
location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|html)$ {
    access_log off;
    expires max;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Deny all attempts to access hidden files such as .htaccess, .htpasswd, .DS_Store (Mac).
location ~ /\. {
                deny all;
                access_log off;
                log_not_found off;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
# short cuts
if ($uri ~* "/login") {
    rewrite ^/login(/.*)? /wp-admin$1;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
# BEGIN W3TC Browser Cache
gzip on;
gzip_types text/css application/x-javascript text/richtext image/svg+xml text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon;
location ~ \.(css|js)$ {
        expires 31536000s;
        add_header Pragma "public";
        add_header Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
        add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.3";
}
location ~ \.(html|htm|rtf|rtx|svg|svgz|txt|xsd|xsl|xml)$ {
        expires 180s;
        add_header Pragma "public";
        add_header Cache-Control "max-age=180, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
        add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.3";
}
location ~ \.(asf|asx|wax|wmv|wmx|avi|bmp|class|divx|doc|docx|exe|gif|gz|gzip|ico|jpg|jpeg|jpe|mdb|mid|midi|mov|qt|mp3|m4a|mp4|m4v|mpeg|mpg|mpe|mpp|odb|odc|odf|odg|odp|ods|odt|ogg|pdf|png|pot|pps|ppt|pptx|ra|ram|swf|tar|tif|tiff|wav|wma|wri|xla|xls|xlsx|xlt|xlw|zip)$ {
        expires 31536000s;
        add_header Pragma "public";
        add_header Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
        add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.3";
}
# END W3TC Browser Cache
# BEGIN W3TC Skip 404 error handling by WordPress for static files
if (-f $request_filename) {
        break;
}
if (-d $request_filename) {
        break;
}
if ($request_uri ~ "(robots\.txt|sitemap(_index|[0-9]+)?\.xml(\.gz)?)") {
        break;
}
if ($request_uri ~* \.(css|js|html|htm|rtf|rtx|svg|svgz|txt|xsd|xsl|xml|asf|asx|wax|wmv|wmx|avi|bmp|class|divx|doc|docx|exe|gif|gz|gzip|ico|jpg|jpeg|jpe|mdb|mid|midi|mov|qt|mp3|m4a|mp4|m4v|mpeg|mpg|mpe|mpp|odb|odc|odf|odg|odp|ods|odt|ogg|pdf|png|pot|pps|ppt|pptx|ra|ram|swf|tar|tif|tiff|wav|wma|wri|xla|xls|xlsx|xlt|xlw|zip)$) {
        return 404;
}
# END W3TC Skip 404 error handling by WordPress for static files
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

basically I added the following block:

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;

to the location block:

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    location / {
        index index.html index.php index.htm;
        location ~* ^.*\.php$ {
            include        fastcgi_params;
                fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
                fastcgi_index  index.php;
                fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            }
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }

can this be done better? please let me know, I love learning more about nginx

after further review I have updated my answer to the following setup based on http://wiki.nginx.org/WordPress

site config:

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name *.noconformity.co noconformity.co;
  root /srv/www/www.noconformity.co;
  access_log /var/log/nginx-hosts/www_noconformity.co.access;
  error_log /var/log/nginx-hosts/www_noconformity.co.error error;

  error_page 400 401 402 403 404 500 502 503 504 /error.htm;
  location  /error.htm {
    internal;
  }
    # ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # remove all sub domains and www
    if ($http_host !~* "^(sub1|sub2)\.noconformity\.co$"){
        set $rule_0 1$rule_0;
    }
    if ($http_host ~ "^([^.]+)\.noconformity\.co$"){
        set $rule_0 2$rule_0;
    }
    if ($rule_0 = "21"){
        rewrite ^/(.*)$ http://noconformity.co/$1 permanent;
        break;
    }

    include /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress.conf;

}

and the wordpress.conf

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
location / {
    index index.html index.php index.htm;
        location ~ \.php$ {
            fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
            include fastcgi_params;
            fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
            fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
            fastcgi_index  index.php;
      fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        }
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Login Short Cut
if ($uri ~* "/login") {
    rewrite ^/login(/.*)? /wp-admin$1;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
location = /favicon.ico { 
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
location = /robots.txt {
    allow all;
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {
    expires max;
    log_not_found off;
}
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Deny all attempts to access hidden files such as .htaccess, .htpasswd, .DS_Store (Mac).
location ~ /\. {
    deny all;
    access_log off;
    log_not_found off;
}

please let me know what you think, I am really looking for feedback. if you have suggestions please let me know what to change in detail.