How to install Nginx 1.4.x on Unix systems?

Today now in this post i will show you How to install Nginx 1.4.x on Unix systems? In this documentation i will cover up installing and the configuring of PHP also with PHP-FPM for a Nginx 1.4.x HTTP server.

So now in this guide i will be show that we have to built Nginx server from the source and the therefore all binaries and the configuration files are as located at /usr/local/nginx. Now so If this is not the case and we have obtained Nginx through other means then it please refer to the  Nginx Wiki in order to the translate this manual to our setup.

So now in this guide i will fully cover all the basics of how to configuring an Nginx server to process PHP applications and the serve them on port 80, so it is highly recommended that way we can study the Nginx and PHP-FPM documentation. Now if we need to wish optimize our setup to past the scope from this documentation.

So please need to note that throughout this documentation version numbers it have been replaced with an ‘x’ to ensure so this documentation stays it correct in the future, need to please replace these as necessary with the corresponding version of the numbers.

1. It i am recommended that we can visit the Nginx Wiki » install page for more information so in order to obtain and install Nginx on our system.

2. Obtain and unpack the PHP source:

tar zxf php-x.x.x

For Configure and build the PHP. So this where we can customize the PHP with the various options, as like as which an extensions will be enabled. Run the ./configure –help for a list of an available options. Now In our example i’ll do a simple configure with the PHP-FPM and MySQLi support.

cd ../php-x.x.x
./configure --enable-fpm --with-mysqli
make
sudo make install

So Obtain and the move configuration files to their correct locations

cp php.ini-development /usr/local/php/php.ini
cp /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf.default /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
cp sapi/fpm/php-fpm /usr/local/bin

Now it is an important that we have to prevent the Nginx from the passing requests to the PHP-FPM backend if the file does not exists, so allowing us to prevent arbitrarily script the injection.

We need to fix this by setting the cgi.fix_pathinfo to directive to 0 within our php.ini file.

Load up php.ini:

vim /usr/local/php/php.ini

To Locate cgi.fix_pathinfo= and to modify it as follows:

cgi.fix_pathinfo=0

Now php-fpm.conf must be modified to the specify on that php-fpm must be run as the user www-data and the group to www-data before we can start the service:

vim /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf

Find and modify our following:

; Unix user/group of processes
; Note: The user is mandatory. If the group is not set, the default user's group
; will be used.
user = www-data
group = www-data

The php-fpm service can now be started:

/usr/local/bin/php-fpm

So this guide will not be configure by php-fpm any further, if we are interested in this further configuring php-fpm then please consult the documentation.

Nginx must now be configured to support the processing with PHP applications:

vim /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf

To modify the default location to block be aware it must be attempt to serve .php files:

location / {
    root   html;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
}

Now in the next step is for ensure the .php files are passed on the PHP-FPM backend. So the below commented default PHP location block, enter the following:

location ~* \.php$ {
    fastcgi_index   index.php;
    fastcgi_pass    127.0.0.1:9000;
    include         fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME    $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_NAME        $fastcgi_script_name;
}

Restart Nginx.

sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -s stop
sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx

Create a test file

rm /usr/local/nginx/html/index.html
echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" >> /usr/local/nginx/html/index.php

Now need to navigate http://localhost. The phpinfo() should now be shown here.

So the following steps in the above it we will have to running Nginx web server with in support for the PHP as an FPM SAPI module. Now of course need to there are many more configuration to options available for the Nginx and PHP. So for the more information need to type ./configure –help in the corresponding to source tree.

Read Also: How to Install Apache 2.x on Unix systems ?