Nginx / PHP with FreeBSD.

How to install Nginx + php8.x + plugins on Freebsd #

FreeBSD with jails are perfects for hosting HTTPS services.

Tested with FreeBSD 13.x / 14.x and PHP8.3 but should be exactly the same how to with another version.

Create a new jail with bastille #

Let's use the classic configuration with bastille0 setting , consult Bastille Documentation bastille documentation for specifics setup.

bastille create nginx-php-jail
bastille console nginx-php-jail

Install the usual stuff #

Note : with FreeBSD php packet are named like this , php8X-extension . So it will be same on php83 on the futur.

pkg install nginx vim
pkg install php82 php82-curl php82-dom php82-exif php82-mbstring php82-xm php82-zip \
php82-session php82-xml-8.2.7 php82-xml-8.2.7 php82-mysqli
# Plugin for perfs :
pkg install php82-pecl-APCu php82-opcache

Configure PHP #

Copy the php.ini-production file to a .ini file.

# cp -p /usr/local/etc/php.ini-production /usr/local/etc/php.ini

Configure php-fpm. #

99% of the config within the php-fpm.d/www.conf is commented by default and only needed to for specifics settings, you can create your own file with this.

# grep -v -e '^;' /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf | cat -s
[www-blog]
user = www
group = www
listen = /var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock
listen.owner = www
listen.group = www
listen.mode = 0660
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 5
pm.start_servers = 2
pm.min_spare_servers = 1
pm.max_spare_servers = 3

Create the directory for the php socket

# mkdir /var/run/php-fpm/
# chown www:www /var/run/php-fpm/

Enable Jit + Opcache #

There are 3 "famous" performances addon for PHP : APCu, Opcache and JIT.
To enable opcache and Jit compiler. Add the following lines to this file.

# cat /usr/local/etc/php/ext-10-opcache.ini
zend_extension=opcache.so
opcache.enable=1
opcache.jit=1255
opcache.jit_buffer_size=100M

On Latest PHP Version APCu is automatically enabled you juste have to install the package.

Same for JIT on php8.3 it is now upstream.

Nginx minimal config #

Not a production configuration.
Missing a lot of header security, https, upstream ... Just for test.

user  www;
worker_processes  2;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    keepalive_timeout  65;
    #gzip  on;

    server {
        listen       44000;
        server_name  blog-test.fr;
        root /usr/local/www/my-blog;
        index index.php index.html;

        #charset koi8-r;

        location / {
                try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
        }
        
        error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
        location = /50x.html {
                root   /usr/local/www/nginx-dist;
        }

        location ~ \.php$ {
                try_files $uri =404;
                fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
                fastcgi_pass   unix:/var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
                fastcgi_index  index.php;
                fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;
                include        fastcgi_params;
        }

    }
} 

Create the log directory #

# mkdir /var/log/nginx
# chown www:www /var/log/nginx/

Don't forget to rotate the logs
Add this in newsyslog /etc/newsyslog.conf

/var/log/nginx/access.log                       600  10    500  $W0D23  J  /var/run/nginx.pid
/var/log/nginx/error.log                        600  10    100  $W0D23  J  /var/run/nginx.pid

Create a php.info file and check that all is working fine. #

mkdir /usr/local/www/my-blog
chown www:www /usr/local/www/my-blog

Then add a file index.php filled with

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Enable the services and reboot the jail from your host. #

# sysrc nginx_enable=YES
# sysrc php_fpm_enable="YES"

Reboot the jail #

Leave the jail and from the host :

bastille restart jail-blog

Test the url through the port defined on the nginx config. #

Check that Opcache / Jit / APCu are correctly enabled.