Installing and Configuring Laravel with Nginx on Ubuntu 22.04

Laravel is an open-source PHP programming language framework based on the MVC architecture and the Symphony framework. It offers a set of tools to build modern PHP applications. Laravel is highly scalable, has elegant syntax and advanced features, and has built-in support for distributed cache systems, which help simplify web application development.

Step 1 – Install LEMP Server

Laravel runs on a web server, uses MySQL as a database backend, and is written in PHP, so you will need a LEMP stack installed on your server. You can install all LEMP server components using the following command.

apt install nginx mysql-server php php-fpm php-mbstring php-xml php-bcmath php-curl zip unzip -y

After installing the LEMP stack, start and enable all necessary services.

systemctl start nginx mysql php-fpm 
systemctl enable nginx mysql php-fpm

Step 2 – Create a Database for Laravel

Next, you will need to create a database and user for Laravel.

First, connect to the MySQL with the following command.

mysql 

Next, create a database and user for Laravel.

CREATE DATABASE laravel;
CREATE USER 'laravel_user'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';
GRANT ALL ON laravel.* TO 'laravel_user'@'%';

Next, flush the privileges and exit from the MySQL shell.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 3 – Install Laravel

In this section, we will install Laravel using Composer.

First, install the Composer with the following command.

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer

Next, navigate to the Nginx web root and create a Laravel project.

cd /var/www/html
composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel laravel

You will see the following output.

> @php artisan vendor:publish --tag=laravel-assets --ansi --force

   INFO  No publishable resources for tag [laravel-assets].  

No security vulnerability advisories found.
> @php artisan key:generate --ansi

   INFO  Application key set successfully.  

Next, set proper permissions and ownership on the Laravel directory.

chown -R :www-data /var/www/html/laravel
chmod -R 775 /var/www/html/laravel

Next, change the directory to Laravel and generate PHP artisan.

cd laravel
php artisan key:generate

Next, edit the environment variable file.

nano /var/www/html/laravel/.env

Define your Laravel database settings as shown below.

LOG_CHANNEL=stack

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=laravel_user
DB_PASSWORD=password

Save and close the file when you are done.

Step 4 – Configure Nginx for Laravel

Next, you must create a Nginx virtual host configuration file for Laravel.

nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/laravel.conf

Add the following configuration.

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name laravel.example.com;
    root /var/www/html/laravel/public;

    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";

    index index.html index.htm index.php;

    charset utf-8;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location = /robots.txt  { access_log off; log_not_found off; }

    error_page 404 /index.php;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
        deny all;
    }
}

Save and close the file, then edit the Nginx main configuration file.

nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Add the following line after the line http {:

server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;

Save the file, then verify Nginx for syntax errors.

nginx -t

Output.

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

Next, restart the Nginx service to apply the changes.

systemctl reload nginx

Step 5 – Access Laravel Web UI

At this point, Laravel is installed and configured with Nginx. Now, open your web browser and access the Laravel web UI using the URL http://laravel.example.com. You will see the Laravel sample page on the following screen.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Laravel with Nginx on Ubuntu 22.04. You can now explore the Laravel features and deploy your PHP-based application using the Laravel framework. You can now deploy Laravel on dedicated server hosting from Atlantic.Net!