How To Install Laravel PHP Framework With Nginx On CentOS 8

How to Install Laravel PHP
Framework with Nginx on

CentOS 8
Aaron KiliApril 24, 2020 CategoriesCentOS, Laravel 1 Comment
Laravel is an open-source, well-known, and modern PHP-based web

framework with expressive, elegant, and easy to understand syntax which
makes it easy to build large, robust web applications.
Its key features include a simple, fast routing engine, powerful dependency
injection container, multiple back-ends for session and cache storage,
expressive and intuitive database ORM (Object-relational Mapping), robust
background job processing, and real-time event broadcasting.
Also, it uses tools such as Composer – a PHP package manager for

managing dependencies and Artisan – a command-line interface for
building and managing web applications.
In this article, you will learn how to install the latest version of the Laravel
PHP web framework on CentOS 8 Linux distribution.
Server Requirements
The Laravel framework has the following requirements:
• PHP >= 7.2.5 with these PHP extensions OpenSSL, PDO,
Mbstring, Tokenizer, XML, Ctype and JSON.
• Composer – for installing and manage dependencies.
Step 1: Installing LEMP Stack in CentOS 8

1. To start off, update system software packages and install LEMP stack
(Linux, Nginx, MariaDB / MySQL, and PHP) using the following dnf
commands.
# dnf update
# dnf install nginx php php-fpm php-common php-xml php-
mbstring php-json php-zip mariadb-server php-mysqlnd
2. When the LEMP installation is complete, you need to start the PHP-
PFM, Nginx and MariaDB services using the following systemctl
commands.
# systemctl start php-fpm nginx mariadb
# systemctl enable php-fpm nginx mariadb
# systemctl status php-fpm nginx mariadb
3. Next, you need to secure and harden the MariaDB database engine using
the security script as shown.
# mysql_secure_installation
Answer the following questions to secure the server installation.
Enter current password for root (enter for none): Enter

Set root password? [Y/n] y #set new root password Remove
anonymous users? [Y/n] y Disallow root login remotely?
[Y/n] y Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y
4. If you have the firewalld service running, you need to open

the HTTP and HTTPS service in the firewall to enable client requests to the
Nginx web server.
# firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-

service=http
# firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-
service=https
# firewall-cmd --reload
5. Finally, you can confirm that your LEMP stack is running using a browser
at your system’s IP address.
http://server-IP
Check Nginx Web Page

Step 2: Configuring and Securing PHP-
FPM and Nginx
6. To process requests from the Nginx web server, PHP-FPM can listen on
a Unix socket or TCP socket and this is defined by the listen parameter in
the /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf configuration file.
# vi /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
By default, it is configured to listen on a Unix socket as shown in the

following screenshot. The value here will be specified in the Nginx server
block file later on.
Set PHP-FPM Listen Socket

7. If using a Unix socket, you should also set the correct ownership and
permissions on it as shown in the screenshot. Uncomment the following
parameters and set their values to the user and group to match the user and
group Nginx is running as.
listen.owner = nginx
listen.group = nginx
listen.mode = 066
Set Listen Socket Ownership to Nginx
8. Next, also set the system-wide time zone in the /etc/php.ini configuration
file.
# vi /etc/php.ini
Look for the line “;date.timezone” and uncomment it, then set its value as
shown in the screenshot (use values that apply to your region/continent and
country).
date.timezone = Africa/Kampala
Set Timezone
in PHP
9. To mitigate the risk of Nginx passing requests from malicious users who
use other extensions to execute PHP code to PHP-FPM, uncomment the
following parameter and set it’s value to 0.
cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
Secure PHP and Nginx

10. In relation to the previous point, also uncomment the following parameter
in the /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf file. Read the comment for more
explanation.
security.limit_extensions = .php .php3 .php4 .php5 .php7
Limit PHP Extension Executions

Step 3: Installing Composer and Laravel
PHP Framework
11. Next, install the Composer package by running the following
commands. The first command downloads the installer, then runs it using
PHP.
# curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
# mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
# chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer
Install Composer in CentOS 8

12. Now that Composer is installed, use it to install Laravel files and
dependencies as follows. Replace mysite.com with the name of the
directory where the Laravel files will be stored, the absolute path (or root
path in Nginx configuration file) will be /var/www/html/mysite.com.
# cd /var/www/html/
# composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel

mysite.com
Install Laravel in CentOS 8
If all goes well during the process, the application should be installed
successfully and a key should be generated as shown in the following
screenshot.
Laravel Installation Complete
13. During the installation process, the .env environment file was created
and the required application was also generated, so you don’t need to create
them manually like before. To confirm this, run a long listing of the laravel
root directory using ls command.
# ls -la mysite.com/
List Laravel Files
14. Next, you need to configure the correct ownership and permissions on
the storage and the bootstrap/cache directories to be writable by the Nginx
web server.
# chown -R :nginx /var/www/html/mysite.com/storage/
# chown -R :nginx
/var/www/html/mysite.com/bootstrap/cache/
# chmod -R 0777 /var/www/html/mysite.com/storage/
# chmod -R 0775
/var/www/html/mysite.com/bootstrap/cache/
15. If SELinux enabled on your server, you should also update the security
context of the storage and bootstrap/cache directories.
# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t

'/var/www/html/mysite.com/storage(/.*)?'
# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t

'/var/www/html/mysite.com/bootstrap/cache(/.*)?'
# restorecon -Rv '/var/www/html/mysite.com'
Step 4: Configure Nginx Server Block For

Laravel
16. For Nginx to start serving your website or application, you need to
create a server block for it in a .conf file under /etc/nginx/conf.d/ directory
as shown.
# vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/mysite.com.conf
Copy and paste the following configuration in the file. Take note of the root
and fastcgi_pass parameters.
server {
listen 80;
server_name mysite.com;
root /var/www/html/mysite.com/public;
index index.php;
charset utf-8;
gzip on;
gzip_types text/css application/javascript

text/javascript application/x-javascript image/svg+xml
text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/

/index.php?$query_string;
location ~ \.php {
include fastcgi.conf;
fastcgi_split_path_info
^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/www.sock;
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
17. Save the file and check if the Nginx configuration syntax is correct by
running.
# nginx -t
Check Nginx Configuration

18. Then restart the PHP-FPM and Nginx services for the recent changes to
take effect.
# systemctl restart php-fpm
# systemctl restart Nginx
Step 5: Accessing Laravel Website from a

Web Browser
19. To access the Laravel website at mysite.com, which is not a fully

qualified domain name (FQDN) and it is not registered (it’s only used for
testing purposes), we will use the /etc/hosts file on your local machine to
create local DNS.
Run the following command to add the server IP address and domain in the
required file (replace the value according to your settings).
# ip add #get remote server IP
$ echo "10.42.0.21 mysite.com" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
Add DNS Entries in Local File

20. Next, open a web browser on the local machine and use the following
address to navigate.
http://mysite.com

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How to Install Laravel PHP

Framework with Nginx on

Laravel is an open-source, well-known, and modern PHP-based web

Also, it uses tools such as Composer – a PHP package manager for

Step 1: Installing LEMP Stack in CentOS 8

# systemctl start php-fpm nginx mariadb

# systemctl enable php-fpm nginx mariadb

# systemctl status php-fpm nginx mariadb

Answer the following questions to secure the server installation.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Enter

4. If you have the firewalld service running, you need to open

# firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-

Check Nginx Web Page

By default, it is configured to listen on a Unix socket as shown in the

Set PHP-FPM Listen Socket

Secure PHP and Nginx

security.limit_extensions = .php .php3 .php4 .php5 .php7

Limit PHP Extension Executions

# curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Install Composer in CentOS 8

# composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel

# chown -R :nginx /var/www/html/mysite.com/storage/

# chmod -R 0777 /var/www/html/mysite.com/storage/

# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t

# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t

# restorecon -Rv '/var/www/html/mysite.com'

Step 4: Configure Nginx Server Block For

gzip_types text/css application/javascript

try_files $uri $uri/

Check Nginx Configuration

# systemctl restart php-fpm

# systemctl restart Nginx

Step 5: Accessing Laravel Website from a

19. To access the Laravel website at mysite.com, which is not a fully

$ echo "10.42.0.21 mysite.com" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

Add DNS Entries in Local File

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