Hello, friends. FreeBSD is a secure system even more than Linux, that’s why it’s used as the main server. And a server has to be able to be web too, so in this post, you will learn how to install Nginx and PHP on FreeBSD 12.
Nginx and PHP is a very strong combination for a web server. If we add FreeBSD to them then it’s a safe bet that will give us a lot of satisfaction.
To complete this post, you need a root user or one who has sudo access.
So, let’s get started.
Install Nginx and PHP on FreeBSD 12
1.- Install Nginx on FreeBSD 12
We have to start with the webserver. So open a terminal or start an SSH session on your server and update the whole system:
sudo pkg update
sudo pkg upgrade
Afterward, install some packages needed to continue the tutorial:
sudo pkg install nano bash curl
Then, install Nginx from the official Nginx repositories. This is the most secure and stable way to proceed.
sudo pkg install nginx Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue… FreeBSD repository is up to date. All repositories are up to date. The following 2 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked): New packages to be INSTALLED: nginx: 1.18.0_25,2 pcre: 8.44 Number of packages to be installed: 2 The process will require 8 MiB more space. 2 MiB to be downloaded. Proceed with this action? [y/N]:
After that, enable the Nginx service:
sudo sysrc nginx_enable=yes nginx_enable: -> yes
Start it:
sudo service nginx start
And check the status of the service to verify that everything is going well:
sudo service nginx status nginx is running as pid 882.
Also, you can check the installed version:
nginx -v nginx version: nginx/1.18.0
2.- Install PHP on FreeBSD
It is now time to install PHP which is available from the official FreeBSD repositories.
So, the whole installation is summarized by running the following command:
sudo pkg install php74 Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue… FreeBSD repository is up to date. All repositories are up to date. The following 4 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked): New packages to be INSTALLED: libargon2: 20190702 libxml2: 2.9.10_1 pcre2: 10.35 php74: 7.4.12 Number of packages to be installed: 4 The process will require 40 MiB more space. 6 MiB to be downloaded. Proceed with this action? [y/N]:
Also, you can install other modules that are required by web applications. One way to know which modules are available is to run them:
sudo pkg search ^php74-*
And there you can choose which ones to install or not.
3.- Configuring PHP to work with Nginx
Now we have to make some arrangements to make PHP work with Nginx.
First, copy the example configuration file and rename it to the real one.
sudo cp /usr/local/etc/php.ini-production /usr/local/etc/php.ini
Edit this file with nano:
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/php.ini
And it leaves the parameter of the following form:
cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
You can use CTRL + W to search within the archive and save time.
Save the changes and close the editor
Now edit the file /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
And uncomment the following lines:
listen.owner = www
listen.group = www
listen.mode = 0660
And it replaces:
;listen = 127.0.0.1:9000
To:
listen = /var/run/php-fpm.sock;
Again, save the changes and close the file.
Now enable and start php_fpm service
4.- Configuring Nginx
Now it is necessary to edit the default server block configuration file:
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/nginx/example.conf
And add the following
server {
listen 80;
server_name your-server;
root /usr/local/www/nginx-dist;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
location ~ .php$ {
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
}
Remember to change server_name to yours
Save the changes and close the file.
Then, in the main configuration file of Nginx, you have to add the previous file:
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
and within the http section add the following:
include example.conf;
Save the changes and close the file
Then check the syntax of Nginx
sudo nginx -t nginx: the configuration file /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok nginx: configuration file /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful
Then restart Nginx
sudo service nginx reload
5.- Testing Nginx and PHP on FreeBSD
To check the results, just create a PHP file with some code in the
sudo nano /usr/local/www/nginx-dist/info.php
For example, the phpinfo method
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
Save the changes and close the editor.
Now open it from a web browser.
So, Nginx and PHP are working on FreeBSD
Conclusion
In this post, you learned how to install Nginx on PHP on FreeBSD quickly and easily. This combination is a guarantee of speed, efficiency, and stability.
