Ubuntu Nginx+PHP

This will install Nginx and PHP 7.x on Ubuntu or later and perform basic configurations needed to get it up and running. This is used to create servers to serve static content as well as minor PHP scripts that need to run on it.

After we'll set up SSL using LetsEncrypt and use it to transfer static and dynamic content over HTTPS.

Start by updating the server and installing Nginx as well as certbot:

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sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install nginx nano sqlite3 python3-certbot-nginx

Then install PHP:

Only what's required

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sudo apt install php-sqlite3 php-curl php-xml php-mbstring php-fpm php-gd php-imagick

Or full installation

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sudo apt install php-cgi php-cli php-mysql php-gd php-imagick php-recode php-tidy php-xmlrpc php-sqlite3 php-curl php-xml php-mbstring php-fpm

Edit PHP.ini file:

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sudo nano /etc/php/8.*/fpm/php.ini

And add these at the bottom:

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short_open_tag = On
display_errors = on
error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_STRICT & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_WARNING
error_log = error_log
output_buffering = Off
date.timezone = "Asia/Singapore"
upload_max_filesize = 50M
post_max_size = 50M
memory_limit = 128M

Edit the nginx configuration file:

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sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

And add this line to increase file upload size:

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http {
  #...
  client_max_body_size 50M;
  #...
}

And enable PHP in Nginx site config files for your domain (where example.com is your domain)

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sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.com/public_html/
sudo touch /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com.conf
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/example.com.conf

Edit the example.com.conf file created in last step

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sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com.conf

And edit it to make it look like this:

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server {

        root /var/www/example.com/public_html/;
        index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
        server_name example.com;

        location / {
                try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
        }

        location ~ \.php$ {
                include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
                fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
        }

        location ~ /\.ht {
                deny all;
        }


        listen 80;

}

Finally save and exit.

Now enable Nginx and PHP fpm to start on boot and run now.

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sudo systemctl enable nginx php8.3-fpm
sudo systemctl restart php8.3-fpm
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Now lets get a certificate for the domain from certbot:

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sudo certbot --nginx --redirect -d example.com

Follow the steps and you'll get a certificate.