Setting Up a LEMP Stack

LEMP (Linux, Nginx, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP-FPM) offers better performance than LAMP for high-traffic sites because Nginx handles concurrent connections more efficiently than Apache.

Step 1 — Install Nginx

apt update
apt install nginx -y
systemctl enable nginx

Step 2 — Install MariaDB

apt install mariadb-server -y
mysql_secure_installation

Step 3 — Install PHP-FPM

apt install php-fpm php-mysql php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-zip -y

Step 4 — Configure Nginx to Use PHP-FPM

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com

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

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

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

Enable and test:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t
systemctl reload nginx

Step 5 — Test PHP

mkdir -p /var/www/yourdomain.com
echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" > /var/www/yourdomain.com/info.php

Visit http://yourdomain.com/info.php to verify. Delete the file after testing.