Nginx serves .php files as downloads, instead of executing them

Try this:

1. Edit /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

2. Uncomment both listen lines to make Nginx listen on port 80 IPv4 and IPv6.

    listen   80; ## listen for ipv4; this line is default and implied
    listen   [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on; ## listen for ipv6
   

3. Leave server_name alone

    # Make site accessible (...)
    server_name localhost;
   

4. Add index.php to the index line

    root /usr/share/nginx/www;
    index index.php index.html index.htm;
   

5. Uncomment location ~ \.php$ {}

    # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on (...)
    #
    location ~ \.php$ {
            try_files $uri =404;
            fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(/.+)?$;
            # NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
   
            # With php5-cgi alone:
            #fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
            # With php5-fpm:
            fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
            include fastcgi_params;
    }
   

6. Edit /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini and make sure cgi.fix_pathinfo is set to 0

7. Restart Nginx and php5-fpm sudo service nginx restart && sudo service php5-fpm restart

I just started using Linux a week ago, so I really hope to help you with this. I am using a nano text editor to edit the files. run apt-get install nano if you don’t have it. Google it to know more.