Setting up PHP with nGinx on Ubuntu

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In our last post, we have seen how easy it is to install nginx. Today we shall see how we can configure PHP to run with nGinx.

First set a valid configuration file:

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Paste this following sample configuration in that file:

server {
    listen   80;
    server_name  localhost;
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/localhost.access.log;

## Default location
    location / {
        root   /var/www;
        index  index.php;
    }

## Images and static content is treated different
    location ~* ^.+.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|xml)$ {
      access_log        off;
      expires           30d;
      root /var/www;
    }

## Parse all .php file in the /var/www directory
    location ~ .php$ {
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(.*)$;
        fastcgi_pass   backend;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  /var/www$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param  QUERY_STRING     $query_string;
        fastcgi_param  REQUEST_METHOD   $request_method;
        fastcgi_param  CONTENT_TYPE     $content_type;
        fastcgi_param  CONTENT_LENGTH   $content_length;
        fastcgi_intercept_errors        on;
        fastcgi_ignore_client_abort     off;
        fastcgi_connect_timeout 60;
        fastcgi_send_timeout 180;
        fastcgi_read_timeout 180;
        fastcgi_buffer_size 128k;
        fastcgi_buffers 4 256k;
        fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 256k;
        fastcgi_temp_file_write_size 256k;
    }

## Disable viewing .htaccess & .htpassword
    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny  all;
    }
}
upstream backend {
        server 127.0.0.1:9000;
}

Now we shall install PHP:

cd /tmp
wget http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/k/krb5/libkrb53_1.6.dfsg.4~beta1-5ubuntu2_i386.deb
wget http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu38_3.8-6ubuntu0.2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

sudo echo "deb http://php53.dotdeb.org stable all" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php5-cli php5-common php5-suhosin
sudo apt-get install php5-fpm php5-cgi

You might have noticed that we have installed the “php5-fpm” package which actually works as the bond between nginx and php.

We now have to restart nginx and fpm:

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart
sudo /etc/init.d/php5-fpm restart

In order to test if the execution of PHP is working, create an index.php file in /var/www with the following content:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>