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Configuring a Production LEMP Stack (Linux, Nginx, MariaDB, PHP)

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Summary: A LEMP stack is Linux, Nginx (pronounced 'engine-x'), MariaDB and PHP. Install the three packages from Ubuntu's repositories, secure MariaDB, connect Nginx to PHP-FPM through a Unix socket, then size PHP-FPM's process pool to the RAM you have. Harden the server first with our checklist.

How a LEMP request flows

  1. 01

    Browser

    HTTPS request

  2. 02

    Nginx

    Serves static files directly

  3. 03

    PHP-FPM

    Runs .php via Unix socket

  4. 04

    MariaDB

    Queries over local socket

1. Install the packages

terminalbash
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nginx mariadb-server php-fpm php-mysql php-curl php-mbstring php-xml php-zip php-gd php-intl
php -v   # note the version, e.g. 8.3

2. Secure MariaDB

terminalbash
sudo mariadb-secure-installation
sudo mariadb <<'SQL'
CREATE DATABASE app CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'app'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'use-a-long-random-password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON app.* TO 'app'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
SQL

3. Configure an Nginx server block

/etc/nginx/sites-available/example.canginx
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name example.ca www.example.ca;
    root /var/www/example.ca/public;
    index index.php index.html;

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

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
    }

    location ~* \.(css|js|png|jpg|webp|svg|woff2)$ {
        expires 30d;
        access_log off;
    }

    location ~ /\. { deny all; }
}
terminalbash
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.ca /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

4. Tune PHP-FPM workers

Each PHP-FPM child uses memory, often 40–80 MB for a CMS. Measure your real average, then set pm.max_children to roughly (RAM available for PHP ÷ average process size). Setting it too high causes swapping; too low causes queued requests and 502/504 errors.

terminalbash
# Average PHP-FPM process size in MB
ps -ylC php-fpm8.3 --sort:rss | awk 'NR>1 {sum+=$8; n++} END {print sum/n/1024 " MB"}'
/etc/php/8.3/fpm/pool.d/www.conf (2 GB VPS example)ini
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 20
pm.start_servers = 4
pm.min_spare_servers = 2
pm.max_spare_servers = 6
pm.max_requests = 500

5. Tune Nginx workers

/etc/nginx/nginx.confnginx
worker_processes auto;
events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
    gzip on;
    gzip_types text/css application/javascript application/json image/svg+xml;
    client_max_body_size 64m;
}

Finally, add HTTPS with our SSL/TLS guide. If you have not yet secured the server, start with the hardening checklist. More topics live in server infrastructure.

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