Installing a web stack

A typical PHP site needs a web server, PHP and a database. Here's a clean setup with Nginx, PHP-FPM and MariaDB.

Install the packages

sudo apt install nginx php-fpm php-mysql mariadb-server
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Create the database

sudo mysql
CREATE DATABASE shop;
CREATE USER 'shop'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'a-long-random-password';
GRANT ALL ON shop.* TO 'shop'@'localhost';

Give each site its own database user; never connect the application as root.

Configure Nginx

Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/shop:

server {
    server_name shop.yourcompany.com;
    root /var/www/shop;
    index index.php;
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php-fpm.sock;
    }
}

Enable it, then test and reload:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/shop /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

Add HTTPS

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d shop.yourcompany.com