php `$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']` is empty

Question

I have a problem with my nginx and php configuration. For some reason, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] is empty.

I am running:

Ubuntu 18.04
nginx (nginx version: nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu))
php (PHP 7.2.10-0ubuntu0.18.04.1)

I have no clue what may cause this issue. I've read a lot online but couldn't find any solution.

Just to see if there's more info missing, I checked what I'm getting from print_r($_SERVER);, here's what I'm getting (Censored private info...):

Array ( [USER] => www-data [HOME] => /var/www [HTTP_COOKIE] => CENSORED [HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE] => en-GB,en;q=0.9,he-IL;q=0.8,he;q=0.7,en-US;q=0.6,ru;q=0.5 [HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING] => gzip, deflate, br [HTTP_ACCEPT] => text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng,/;q=0.8 [HTTP_USER_AGENT] => CENSORED [HTTP_UPGRADE_INSECURE_REQUESTS] => 1 [HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL] => max-age=0 [HTTP_CONNECTION] => keep-alive [HTTP_HOST] => cumta.morhaviv.com [SCRIPT_FILENAME] => /var/www/morhaviv.com/public_html/cumta/css/test.php [REDIRECT_STATUS] => 200 [SERVER_NAME] => www.cumta.morhaviv.com [SERVER_PORT] => 443 [SERVER_ADDR] => 153.92.209.235 [REMOTE_PORT] => 22964 [REMOTE_ADDR] => 176.231.2.86 [SERVER_SOFTWARE] => nginx/1.14.0 [GATEWAY_INTERFACE] => CGI/1.1 [HTTPS] => on [REQUEST_SCHEME] => https [SERVER_PROTOCOL] => HTTP/1.1 [DOCUMENT_ROOT] => /var/www/morhaviv.com/public_html/cumta [DOCUMENT_URI] => /css/test.php [REQUEST_URI] => /css/test.php [SCRIPT_NAME] => /css/test.php [CONTENT_LENGTH] => [CONTENT_TYPE] => [REQUEST_METHOD] => GET [QUERY_STRING] => [PATH_INFO] => [FCGI_ROLE] => RESPONDER [PHP_SELF] => [REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT] => 1549710420.5126 [REQUEST_TIME] => 1549710420 )

My nginx.conf:

user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;

events {
    worker_connections 768;
    # multi_accept on;
}

http {
    include        fastcgi_params; 
    ##
    # Basic Settings
    ##

    sendfile on;
    tcp_nopush on;
    tcp_nodelay on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;
    # server_tokens off;

    # server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
    # server_name_in_redirect off;

    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    ##
    # SSL Settings
    ##

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    ##
    # Logging Settings
    ##

    access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

    ##
    # Gzip Settings
    ##

    gzip on;

    # gzip_vary on;
    # gzip_proxied any;
    # gzip_comp_level 6;
    # gzip_buffers 16 8k;
    # gzip_http_version 1.1;
    # gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

    ##
    # Virtual Host Configs
    ##

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}

I'm aware that this question may lack some more info that is needed, but I really have no idea what else is important so please comment and I'll add the missing information.

Thank you for your help!

Also, if you are going to use PHP_SELF. Avoid using it. Or surround it with htmlentities( ) Because it is vulnerable to XSS injection. — Example person

morha13 morha13 · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-09T13:41:41

Some tutorials on installing nginx server with php, insist on changing the php.ini file's parameter cgi.fix_pathinfo, to 0.

So my solution was changing in the php.ini:

cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0

to the default:

cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1

That's it basically.

The solution was found thank's to kenzotenma's comment on his answer, with this link: https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/examples/phpfcgi/

php `$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']` is empty

3 Answers