LEMP stack for a Forge-like Ubuntu server

After getting a fresh Ubuntu server from here, I often install the LEMP stack to run my PHP/Laravel applications with these simple scripts.

Nginx Setup

Install Nginx and use h5bp configs.

wget -O nginx-setup.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/confetticode/forge-like-setup/main/scripts/nginx-setup.sh

bash nginx-setup.sh

When finishing, verify if nginx is running.

systemctl status nginx

PHP Setup

Install PHP 8.3 with Composer. It currently supports PHP 8.3 only.

wget -O php-setup.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/confetticode/forge-like-setup/main/scripts/php-setup.sh

bash php-setup.sh 8.3

When finishing, verity PHP and Composer.

forge@server-host:~$ php -v
PHP 8.3.13 (cli) (built: Oct 30 2024 11:28:41) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.3.13, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.3.13, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies
forge@server-host:~$ composer --version
Composer version 2.8.2 2024-10-29 16:12:11
PHP version 8.3.13 (/usr/bin/php8.3)
Run the "diagnose" command to get more detailed diagnostics output.

Allow forge to reload|restart|status php*-fpm services by creating /etc/sudoers.d/forge file with the following content.

forge ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/systemctl reload php*-fpm
forge ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/systemctl restart php*-fpm
forge ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/systemctl status php*-fpm

Change PHP FPM pool name by opening /etc/php/8.3/fpm/pool.d/www.conf and replacing [www] with [PHP 8.3]

; Start a new pool named 'www'.
; the variable $pool can be used in any directive and will be replaced by the
; pool name ('www' here)
; [www] -> [PHP 8.3]
[PHP 8.3]

Check PHP process names

ps aux | grep php

Restart PHP FPM service and check it status

systemctl restart php8.3-fpm

systemctl status php8.3-fpm

MySQL Setup

The default root password is “secret”. I’ll use mysql_secure_installation command to change it.

wget -O mysql-setup.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/confetticode/forge-like-setup/main/scripts/mysql-setup.sh

bash mysql-setup.sh

When finishing, verify if MySQL is running.

systemctl status nginx

Configure a PHP site

Replace laravel-demo with your domain.

Create a specific log directory

mkdir -p /var/log/nginx/laravel-demo.com

Create a vhost file at /etc/nginx/conf.d/laravel-demo.com.conf

server {
    listen [::]:80;
    listen 80;

    # The host name to respond to
    server_name laravel-demo.com;

    # The root directory
    root /home/forge/laravel-demo.com/public;

    # Write logs to specific files
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/laravel-demo.com/access.log;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx/laravel-demo.com/error.log;

    # Run index.php with a specific PHP-FPM version.
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include extra/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
    }

    # The file should be served by default
    index index.html index.htm index.php;

    # Let index.php handle 404 error.
    error_page 404 /index.php;

     # Include the basic h5bp config set
     include h5bp/basic.conf;

    # Ignore /favicon.ico and /robots.txt requests
    location = /favicon.ico { log_not_found off; access_log off; }
    location = /robots.txt  { log_not_found off; access_log off; }

    # Deny requests to .ht files.
    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    # If a directory or file exists, serve it.
    # Else, try to run index.php.
    # Otherwise, fail with 404 status code.
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
    }
}

Ensure Nginx configuration is OK

nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Reload the Nginx service

systemctl reload nginx

Install Laravel

Clone the Laravel repository

pwd
/home/forge

git clone https://github.com/laravel/laravel.git laravel-demo.com

Cloning into 'laravel-demo.com'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 34591, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (75/75), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (58/58), done.
remote: Total 34591 (delta 30), reused 38 (delta 12), pack-reused 34516 (from 1)
Receiving objects: 100% (34591/34591), 10.51 MiB | 14.82 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (20457/20457), done.

cd laravel-demo.com

Copy .env from .env.example

cp .env.example .env

Install Composer packages

composer install --prefer-dist --no-dev

Generate an application key

php artisan key:generate

Run database migrations

php artisan migrate --forge

Setup DNS

Point the domain to the server IP address. Wait for a while and then visit http://laravel-demo.com to verify it works.

Clean setup files

I place *-setup.sh in /root directory. So I need to go there to delete them.

cd ~ # Go to /root directory

rm *-setup.sh

Summary

Here are steps, scripts or commands I use to set up the LEMP for a Forge-like Ubuntu server. They are installing Nginx, PHP, MySQL and configuring things. It’s a really helpful note for me. I’ll try to update and make more automation stuff later.