Deploy LEMP on Arch Linux

This article covers installation and configuration of LEMP (Linux + NGINX + MySQL + PHP) on Arch Linux.

Installation

Linux

See this guide.

NGINX

There are 2 versions of NGINX available in the repo: mainline and stable. NGINX blog recommends installing the mainline version. This can be done with:

pacman -S nginx-mainline

MySQL

Install mariadb with:

pacman -S mariadb

PHP

Install php and php-fpm with:

pacman -S php php-fpm

Configuration

1. Uncomment in /etc/php/php.ini:

   extension=mysqli.so
   

2. Add a server in NGINX (assuming document root is /srv/http/localhost):

   server {
       listen              80;
       listen              443 ssl;
       server_name         localhost;
   
       root                /srv/http/localhost;
       index               index.php;
   
       location ~ \.php$ {
           include         fastcgi.conf;
           fastcgi_index   index.php;
           fastcgi_pass    unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
       }
   }
   

   Some people may notice that: in /etc/nginx, there is another file fastcgi_params very similar to fastcgi.conf. The difference is explained here. In general, using fastcgi.conf is recommended because it sets fastcgi parameter SCRIPT_FILENAME for you.

Test

1. Create document root:

   mkdir -p /srv/http/localhost
   

2. Add file index.php in document root:

   <?php
   $host = "localhost";
   $user = "root";
   $passwd = "";
   
   $conn = new mysqli($host, $user, $passwd);
   if ($conn->connect_error) {
       die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
   }
   echo "Connected successfully";
   $conn->close();
   ?>
   

3. Start systemd services:

   systemctl start mysqld
   systemctl start php-fpm
   systemctl start nginx
   

4. Open browser at http://localhost/. You should be able to see a line:

   Connected successfully