I have the following simple lighttpd rewrite rule:

$HTTP["host"] =~ "^(app\.mydomain\.com)$" {
url.rewrite-once = (
"^[^.]*$" => "controller.php/$1"
)
}

I am trying to port this rule to nginx and have the following:

server {
listen 80;

server_name app.mydomain.com;

if ($host = 'app.mydomain.com') {
rewrite ^[^.]*$ controller.php/$1 last;
}

root /srv/www/domains/app.mydomain.com;

index index.php;

access_log /var/log/nginx/domains/app.mydomain.com/access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/domains/app.mydomain.com/error.log;

include /etc/nginx/excludes.conf;
include /etc/nginx/php.conf;
include /etc/nginx/expires.conf;
}

The problem is that the rewrite rule for nginx is not working correctly? Any idea what I am doing wrong?

Thanks much.