This is the configuration I'm using:

http://gist.github.com/770180

Note that there was an error in one of the rules Sam posted:

rewrite ^/topic/([^/]+)/?$ /bbpress/topic.php?id=$1 last;

should have been

rewrite ^/topic/([^/]+)/?$ /topic.php?id=$1 last;

locations /forums/
{
include ...
}

even my WP stops working.

Our environment is very different and we have a few in-house modules to handle 'missing files' in place of the '!-e'.

As far as the rewrites go they're good, and obviously you must enable pretty perms for bbpress.

If your having problems ashfame, just cut/past the rewrites outside the file check conditional (if).

I found this http://insecure.no/2009/01/wordpress-and-bbpress-nice-url-rewrite-for-nginx/ it sort of works. pretty permalinks work but any attached files such as the css sheet or jquery.js returns a 404 not found error. Any Ideas?


# SEO friendly URLs for bbPress
#
location /forums/ {
root /path/to/YOURDIRECTORY/public_html/forums;
index index.php;
if (!-e $request_filename) {
rewrite ^/forums/topic/(.*)$ /forums/topic.php?q=$1 last;
rewrite ^/forums/forum/(.*)$ /forums/forum.php?q=$1 last;
rewrite ^/forums/profile/(.*)$ /forums/profile.php?q=$1 last;
rewrite ^/forums/view/(.*)$ /forums/view.php?q=$1 last;
rewrite ^/forums/tags/(.*)$ /forums/tags.php?q=$1 last;
rewrite ^/forums/rss/(.*)$ /forums/rss.php?q=$1 last;
rewrite ^/forums/bb-admin/ /forums/bb-admin/index.php last;
rewrite ^/forums/ /forums/index.php last;
break;
}
}


server {

            listen   80;
            server_name  mydomain.com;
            rewrite ^/(.*) http://www.mydomain.com/$1 permanent;

           }

server {

            listen   80;
            server_name http://www.mydomain.com;

            access_log /home/public_html/mydomain.com/log/access.log;
            error_log /home/public_html/mydomain.com/log/error.log;

            location / {

                        root   /home/public_html/mydomain.com/public/;
                        index  index.php index.html;

                        # Basic version of WordPress parameters, supporting nice permalinks.
                        # include /usr/local/nginx/conf/wordpress_params.regular;
                        # Advanced version of WordPress parameters supporting nice permalinks and WP Super Cache plugin
                        include /usr/local/nginx/conf/wordpress_params.super_cache;
                        }

            # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
            #
            location ~ \.php$ {
            fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
            include /usr/local/nginx/conf/fastcgi_params;
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /home/public_html/mydomain.com/public/$fastcgi_script_name;
            }
      }

I have added the rewrite rules for bbPress in /usr/local/nginx/conf/bbpress_params.regular
Now where should I add include /usr/local/nginx/conf/bbpress_params.regular; in my vhost file?

rewrite ^/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /index.php?page=$1 last;
rewrite ^/forum/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /forum.php?id=$1&page=$2 last;
rewrite ^/forum/([^/]+)/?$ /forum.php?id=$1 last;
rewrite ^/forum/?$ / permanent;
rewrite ^/topic/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /topic.php?id=$1&page=$2 last;
rewrite ^/topic/([^/]+)/?$ /bbpress/topic.php?id=$1 last;
rewrite ^/topic/?$ / permanent;
rewrite ^/tags/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /tags.php?tag=$1&page=$2 last;
rewrite ^/tags/([^/]+)/?$ /tags.php?tag=$1 last;
rewrite ^/tags/?$ /tags.php last;
rewrite ^/profile/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /profile.php?id=$1&page=$2 last;
rewrite ^/profile/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$ /profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2 last;
rewrite ^/profile/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2&page=$3 last;
rewrite ^/profile/([^/]+)/?$ /profile.php?id=$1 last;
rewrite ^/profile/?$ /profile.php last;
rewrite ^/view/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /view.php?view=$1&page=$2 last;
rewrite ^/view/([^/]+)/?$ /view.php?view=$1 last;
rewrite ^/rss/?$ /rss.php last;
rewrite ^/rss/topics/?$ /rss.php?topics=1 last;
rewrite ^/rss/forum/([^/]+)/?$ /rss.php?forum=$1 last;
rewrite ^/rss/forum/([^/]+)/topics/?$ /rss.php?forum=$1&topics=1 last;
rewrite ^/rss/topic/([^/]+)/?$ /rss.php?topic=$1 last;
rewrite ^/rss/tags/([^/]+)/?$ /rss.php?tag=$1 last;
rewrite ^/rss/tags/([^/]+)/topics/?$ /rss.php?tag=$1&topics=1 last;
rewrite ^/rss/profile/([^/]+)/?$ /rss.php?profile=$1 last;
rewrite ^/rss/view/([^/]+)/?$ /rss.php?view=$1 last;

if ( !-e $request_filename ) {
	rewrite ^ /index.php last;
}

# WordPress pretty URLs: (as per dominiek.com)
  if (-f $request_filename) {
  break;
  }
  if (-d $request_filename) {
  break;
  }
  rewrite ^(.+)$ /index.php?q=$1 last;

  # Enable nice permalinks for WordPress: (as per Yawn.it)
  error_page  404  = //index.php?q=$uri;

and I want something similar for bbPress. Please share the solution!