Speaking from experience, once you go down that road it does add extra complication to configuration especially if you're doing it with multiple sites.
Here's the basics of what is working for SneakyDave, note he's got some extra stuff going on with his set up so you would really need to look at all the paths and make sure they're applicable to you.
server {
listen xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:80;
server_name www.example.com...
Try something similar to this.
$config['externalDataPath'] = 'data';
$config['externalDataUrl'] = 'http://data.the-sps.net/data';
$config['javaScriptUrl'] = 'http://js.the-sps.net/js';
Note my main URL is The Self Preservation Society.
Try putting just 'data' in the external data path.
The basic premise of the vhost is in the first post of this thread, you should use that as a base for any xf install. Things become complicated though when you have multiple applications installed on the same domain. The short answer is that I don't have a neat solution for you.
I could share...
D.O.A. on your own forum, what happens if you go to the following urls
http://example.com/acade.php
http://example.com/members.php
These are assuming XenForo is in the root public folder, change the paths as required.
Only reason I ask is because if you're using the vhost as outlined on...
Dave,
I believe yours isn't working because you're missing the try_files directive that you can see in my example on line 14. Backup your current installation before attempting the change.
You need to insert
try_files $uri /community/index.php =404;
Let me know how you get on.