In this blog, we’re not just going to give details about Laravel but provide information as well on how to install LEMP. I know frustrations one sometimes have when using Nginx, PHP, and MySQL/MariaDB like “wt* is wrong with permissions?! I’ve already added it to groups in www-data, I’ve already set my folder to 777, etc” well, I’m with you on that, that is why this tutorial will help you cover everything and starts working on LEMP environment.
Step 1: Install NGINX
sudo apt update && sudo apt install nginx
sudo apt install vim-nox
Configure Nginx
Next, open the Nginx configuration file, which can be found at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
sudo vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
Start by setting the user to the username that you’re currently logged in with. This will make managing file permissions much easier in the future.
The worker_processes directive is the amount of CPU cores your instance. In my case, this is 1.
Uncomment the multi_accept directive and set it to on.
Lower the keepalive_timeout directive to 15.
For security reasons, you should uncomment the server_tokens directive and ensure it is set to off.
Add the new client_max_body_size directive below the server_tokens and set the value to 64m.
Uncomment the gzip_proxied directive and set it to any, uncomment the gzip_comp_level directive and set it to the value of 2 and finally uncomment the gzip_types directive.
In order for Nginx to correctly serve PHP you also need to ensure the fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME directive is set, otherwise, you will receive a blank white screen when accessing any PHP scripts. So open fastcgi_params file by issuing
sudo vi /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params
Add the following at the end of the file
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
That’s all, this is the basic Nginx configuration, hit CTRL+X followed by Y to save the changes. Ensure that the configuration file contains no errors and restart Nginx for the changes to take effect by issuing the following command
sudo nginx -t
If you get a successful message, then proceed with the following command
sudo service nginx restart
Step 2: Install PHP 7.4 FPM and Related Modules
sudo apt-get install php7.4-fpm php7.4-cli php7.4-mysql php7.4-gd php7.4-imagick php7.4-tidy php7.4-xmlrpc php7.4-common php7.4-curl php7.4-mbstring php7.4-xml php7.4-bcmath php7.4-bz2 php7.4-intl php7.4-json php7.4-readline php7.4-zip curl
To check if PHP 7.4 was installed correctly
php –v
Now that PHP 7.4.* has installed and you need to configure the user and group that the service will run under.
sudo vi /etc/php/7.4/fpm/pool.d/www.conf
Change the following lines by replacing the www-data with your username.
user = username
group = username
listen.owner = username
listen.group = username
Now we configure PHP for laravel by changing some values in php.ini.
sudo vi /etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini
upload_max_filesize = 32M
post_max_size = 48M
memory_limit = 256M
max_execution_time = 600
max_input_vars = 3000
max_input_time = 1000
Hit CTRL+X and Y to save the configuration and check if the configuration is correct and restart PHP
sudo php-fpm7.4 -t
sudo service php7.4-fpm restart
Step 3: Install Maridb 10.5
sudo apt -y install software-properties-commonsudo apt-key adv --fetch-keys 'https://mariadb.org/mariadb_release_signing_key.asc'sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64] http://mariadb.mirror.globo.tech/repo/10.5/ubuntu focal main'sudo apt update
sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-clientsudo systemctl status mariadb
sudo mysql_secure_installation
The script will prompt you to set up the root user password, remove the anonymous user, restrict root user access to the local machine and remove the test database. At the end the script will reload the privilege tables ensuring that all changes take effect immediately.
All steps are explained in detail and it is recommended to answer “Y” (yes) to all questions.
Step 5: Install phpMyadmin
sudo apt install phpmyadmin
During the installation, it will prompt you to select a web server to configure. Nginx isn’t in the list, so press the Tab key and hit OK to skip this step.
Next, select Yes to create a new database and let dbconfig-common to configure it.
This will also create a new database user named phpmyadmin. Give this user a password.
Step 6: Create Nginx Server Block for phpMyadmin
sudo vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name phpmyadmin.test;
root /usr/share/phpmyadmin/;
index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
access_log /var/log/nginx/phpmyadmin_access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/phpmyadmin_error.log;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
}
location ~ ^/(doc|sql|setup)/ {
deny all;
}
location ~ .php$ {
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
}
location ~ /.ht {
deny all;
}
}
sudo nano /etc/hosts
Add phpmyadmin.test on your host file
sudo nginx -t
sudo nginx -s reload
Step 7: Create Directory and Grant Permission
sudo chown -R $(whoami):$(whoami) /var/www/html/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www
Step 8: Install Composer
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer
source ~/.bashrc
Step 9: Install Laravel
cd /var/www/html
sudo composer clearcache
composer create-project –prefer-dist laravel/laravel inventory
After running the commands above, a new project directory will be created… Run the commands below to set the correct permissions for that directory
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/inventory/
Step 10: Server Configuration
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/inventory.test
server { listen 80; listen [::]:80; server_name inventory.test; root /var/www/html/inventory/public; index index.php;location / {try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string; }error_page 404 /index.php; location ~ .php$ {fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; } location ~ /.(?!well-known).* { deny all; }}
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/inventory.test /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo vi /etc/hosts
Test configuration if its all working.
sudo nginx –t
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Step 11: Testing laravel on the Browser
You can now view this page in your web browser by visiting your server’s domain name or public IP address http://inventory.test/
