Block access to a file or location on Nginx

Question

We just started running nginx a few weeks ago and need to block access to certain files/location. e.g.:

/wordpress/wp-admin/
/wp-admin/
/test/wp-admin/
/hudson/login
/phpmyadmin/index.php
/mysql/index.php
/myadmin/index.php
/wp-cron.php
/xmlrpc.php

In general we would like to block any file request except /index.php and also any location such as /wp-admin/, /test/wp-admin/, /wordpress/wp-admin/, etc. These files/locations don't exist, so anybody accessing them is trying to hack/abuse the system.

In Apache we would use .htaccess to block such. How do block in Nginx?

Current Conf

server {
    listen       80;
    root /home/public_html;
    index index.php;
    server_name  domain.com;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    } 


    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri /index.php =404;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
    }
}

Answer 1

The config below should cause nginx to respond to the "abuse" URLs with a 404 status and a basic nginx, 404 page; all other URLs ending in .php should be proxy passed to the application/php engine as usual. I've tested on some of the patterns, but you should test all the patterns that you want to be managed by nginx and not the application. I thought this config may have had be some issues on URLs like /phpmyadmin/index.php where the \.php regex of the proxy pass location had higher priority, but my testing shows it works, for me at least.
Also, yes it would be nicer if there were not so many location blocks, but I can't think of how you would achieve that.

server {
    listen       80;
    root /home/public_html;
    index index.php;
    server_name  domain.com;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    } 


    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri /index.php =404;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
    }

    # The ^~ means if this prefix pattern matches use this location block
    # and don't continue onto the regex location blocks - which would load
    # the laravel application
    location ^~ /wordpress/wp-admin/ {
        return 404;
    }
    location ^~ /wp-admin/ {
        return 404;
    }
    location ^~ /test/wp-admin/ {
        return 404;
    }
    location ^~ /hudson/login {
        return 404;
    }
    location ^~ /phpmyadmin/index.php {
        return 404;
    }
    location ^~ /mysql/index.php {
        return 404;
    }
    location ^~ /myadmin/index.php {
        return 404;
    }
    location ^~ /wp-cron.php {
        return 404;
    }
    location ^~ /xmlrpc.php {
        return 404;
    }

}