Installing PHP and PHP-FPM on Ubuntu 26.04

Source: Dev.to

Install PHP

PHP 8.5 is available in Ubuntu 26.04’s default APT repository.

1. Update the APT package index

sudo apt update

2. Install PHP

sudo apt install php -y

3. Verify the installed version

php --version

Install PHP Extensions

Extensions add capabilities like database connectivity, image processing, and archive handling.

1. Install common PHP extensions

sudo apt install php-mysql php-mbstring php-bcmath php-zip php-gd php-curl php-xml -y

What you just installed

• php-mysql – MySQL and MariaDB database connectivity
• php-mbstring – multi‑byte character encoding support
• php-bcmath – arbitrary precision mathematics
• php-zip – ZIP archive handling
• php-gd – image creation and manipulation
• php-curl – HTTP client functionality
• php-xml – XML parsing and formatting

2. Verify extensions are loaded

php -m

Install PHP‑FPM

PHP‑FPM manages a pool of FastCGI worker processes that handle incoming PHP requests from the web server.

1. Install PHP‑FPM

sudo apt install php-fpm -y

2. Enable and start the service

sudo systemctl enable php8.5-fpm
sudo systemctl start php8.5-fpm

3. Check the service status

sudo systemctl status php8.5-fpm

4. Verify the socket exists

ls /run/php/php8.5-fpm.sock

Integrate with Nginx

1. Install Nginx

sudo apt install nginx -y

2. Create the web root directory

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/app.example.com
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/app.example.com

3. Create the virtual host configuration

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/app.example.com.conf

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name app.example.com;
    root /var/www/app.example.com;
    index index.php index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.5-fpm.sock;
    }
}

4. Enable the site and reload Nginx

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/app.example.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Verify the Installation

1. Create a PHP info page

sudo nano /var/www/app.example.com/info.php

2. Open the page in a browser

Visit http://app.example.com/info.php. The PHP info page confirms PHP 8.5 is running through PHP‑FPM.

3. Remove the info page

sudo rm /var/www/app.example.com/info.php

Next Steps

PHP and PHP‑FPM are now installed and integrated with Nginx. From here you can:

• Configure PHP‑FPM pool settings in /etc/php/8.5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf to tune concurrency
• Install Laravel or WordPress on the stack
• Add Composer for PHP package management

For the full guide with additional tips, visit the original article on Vultr Docs.