How to Install Nginx with PHP-FPM on Debian 10

The FastCGI Process Manager (FPM) is an alternative to the FastCGI configuration with multiple enhancements. This is useful for high load websites. This tutorial will help you with the installation and configuration of PHP-FPM with Nginx on your Debian 10 Buster Linux system.

Prerequsities

You must have SSH access to the Debian 10 system with Sudo privileges.

Nginx Installation

Nginx packages are available under default repositories. SSH to your Debian 10 system with sudo privileges accounts and install the Nginx web server from the official repository.

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install nginx 

PHP Installation

For the PHP installation we recommend to use Ondřej Surý‘s PPA, which provides latest PHP versions for Debian systems. Use the below couple of commands to add the PPA to your system.

wget -q https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ buster main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list

Then install PHP latest version available on the day of writing this tutorial. Simply execute follows commands for the installation of PHP and PHP-FPM packages.

apt update
sudo apt install php php-fpm

After installing the above packages php7.3-fpm service will automatically be started. You can make sure by typing below command on terminal.

sudo systemctl status php7.3-fpm

● php7.3-fpm.service - The PHP 7.3 FastCGI Process Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.3-fpm.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2019-12-03 10:01:54 UTC; 24min ago
     Docs: man:php-fpm7.3(8)
 Main PID: 9883 (php-fpm7.3)
   Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 2, Requests: 3, slow: 0, Traffic: 0req/sec"
    Tasks: 3 (limit: 3587)
   Memory: 14.2M
   CGroup: /system.slice/php7.3-fpm.service
           ├─9883 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.3/fpm/php-fpm.conf)
           ├─9884 php-fpm: pool www
           └─9885 php-fpm: pool www

Dec 03 10:01:54 tecadmin-debian10 systemd[1]: Starting The PHP 7.3 FastCGI Process Manager...
Dec 03 10:01:54 tecadmin-debian10 systemd[1]: Started The PHP 7.3 FastCGI Process Manager.

Nginx Configuration

Let’s create Nginx virtual host to run with FPM/FastCGI. For this tutorial, we use default VirtualHost. Edit VirtualHost host configuration file in a text editor. You can create new VirtualHost as per your requirements, so make sure to enable any new VirtualHost.

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com

Use the below basic Nginx Virtual host configuration with PHP FPM settings. Update the configuration as followings.

Save your changes to the configuration file and create a link to site enabled directory.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/example.com 

Then restart Nginx service to reload the changes.

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Test Setup

Create a PHP script with phpinfo() function and place it to your server document root. Use below command to do it.

echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" > /var/www/html/info.php

Now access the info.php using server IP address (for default VirtualHost) for your configured domain in Nginx VirtualHost.

http://localhost/info.php

Conclusion

All done. You have successfully configured Nginx web server with PHP-FPM on your Debian 10 (Buster) Linux. Your server is ready to host websites.