Installing Nginx, MySQL, PHP on Ubuntu 22.04

In this guide you will learn how to install Nginx, MySQL 8.0 and PHP 8.1 and PHP-FPM on Ubuntu 22.04.

Getting Started

1. Update and upgrade the packages and reboot the server.

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get upgrade -y
$ apt-get autoremove -y

$ reboot

2. Install required packages

$ apt-get install unzip zip

Installing Nginx

1. Install nginx

$ apt-get install nginx -y

2. Remove default site

$ unlink /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

$ sudo nginx -t
$ systemctl reload nginx

Installing MySQL Server

1. Install MySQL server.

$ apt-get install mysql-server

2. Setup root password to be R2ZBmTR6nED6a71AxeTO2DSc.

$ mysql

$ mysql> SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
$ mysql> ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'R2ZBmTR6nED6a71AxeTO2DSc';
$ mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
$ mysql> SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;

3. Create Application database, user and password.

$ mysql> CREATE DATABASE appdb;
$ mysql> CREATE USER 'appuser'@'127.0.0.1' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'R2ZBmTR6nED6a71AxeTO2DSc';
$ mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, INDEX, DROP, ALTER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES ON appdb.* TO 'appuser'@'127.0.0.1';
$ mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

4. Test newly created user

$ mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -u appuser -pR2ZBmTR6nED6a71AxeTO2DSc

$ mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| appdb              |
| information_schema |
| performance_schema |
+--------------------+

Installing PHP and PHP-FPM

1. Install php and php-fpm version 8.1

$ apt-get install php8.1-fpm php8.1-common php8.1-mysql \
    php8.1-xml php8.1-xmlrpc php8.1-curl php8.1-gd \
    php8.1-imagick php8.1-cli php8.1-dev php8.1-imap \
    php8.1-mbstring php8.1-soap php8.1-zip php8.1-bcmath -y

2. Check php-fpm status

$ service php8.1-fpm status

Configure Your PHP Application

Let’s assume we have php project running under /var/www/project.

$ mkdir -p /var/www/project/public

1. Create a php file to show the php info

$ nano /var/www/project/public/index.php

<?php

phpinfo();

2. Create the nginx site.

$ nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/project.tld

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name domain.tld www.domain.tld;
    root /var/www/project/public;

    location / {
        # try to serve file directly, fallback to index.php
        try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    # optionally disable falling back to PHP script for the asset directories;
    # nginx will return a 404 error when files are not found instead of passing the
    # request to Symfony (improves performance but Symfony's 404 page is not displayed)
    # location /bundles {
    #     try_files $uri =404;
    # }

    location ~ ^/index\.php(/|$) {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.*)$;
        include fastcgi_params;

        # optionally set the value of the environment variables used in the application
        # fastcgi_param APP_ENV prod;

        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $realpath_root;
        # Prevents URIs that include the front controller. This will 404:
        # http://domain.tld/index.php/some-path
        # Remove the internal directive to allow URIs like this
        internal;
    }

    # return 404 for all other php files not matching the front controller
    # this prevents access to other php files you don't want to be accessible.
    location ~ \.php$ {
        return 404;
    }

    error_log /var/log/nginx/project_error.log;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/project_access.log;
}

$ ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/project.tld /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/project.tld

3. Validate nginx configs and reload configs.

$ sudo nginx -t
$ systemctl reload nginx

visiting the URL http://domain.tld/ should open a php info page.

Please check this project https://github.com/Clivern/Oxygen. It automates the above steps!