the easiest way to enable PHP on nginx

The following method will get you started fast on Ubuntu 12.04;

sudo apt-get install php5-common php5-cli php5-fpm

sudo apt-get install nginx

sudo service nginx start

Test that it's working (should see "Welcome to nginx!")

sudo service nginx stop

In your nginx site configuration (/etc/nginx/sites-available/default), uncomment the lines in the server {} section starting with

listen for ipv4 / ipv6 both.

scroll down to where it says "location ~ .php {" and uncomment lines so it looks like this:

location ~ \.php$ {
  fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$
  fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
  fastcgi_index index.php;
  include fastcgi_params;
}

sudo service php5-fpm restart sudo service nginx restart

Your default web root is located at /usr/share/nginx/www (per the config file). (See root /usr/share/nginx/www;

(Note1: For Ubuntu 12.10 or newer, you will need to replace the fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000; line with this to make it work: fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;)

Note2:  remember to include "index.php" as follows: 

index index.html index.htm index.php;