How to Install or Upgrade PHP 8.1 on Ubuntu 20.04

 PHP 8.1 is the latest PHP version released on 2021. In this guide you are going to learn how to install the latest PHP version which is currently 8.1 on your Ubuntu 20.04 system or server and configure it with Apache and Nginx. You will also learn how to upgrade your PHP version to latest.

This tutorial guides you to configure PHP INI settings, FPM settings, Pools, etc which is more useful for your application to run smooth.

This installation is tested on Google Cloud Platform with a Compute Compute Engine VM Instance. This set up will work on all Linux servers.

GET STARTED

Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of using SSH Terminal on Linux.

Getting Started

Make sure your Ubuntu server is having the latest packages by running the following command.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

This will update the package index and update the installed packages to the latest version.

Add PPA for PHP 8.1

Add the ondrej/php which has PHP 8.1 package and other required PHP extensions.

sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt update

Once you have added the PPA you can install PHP 8.1.

Install PHP 8.1 for Apache

Execute the following command to install PHP 8.1

sudo apt install php8.1

After the installation has completed, you can confirm the installation using the following command

php -v

Install PHP 8.1 FPM for Nginx

For Nginx you need to install FPM. Execute the following command to install PHP 8.1 FPM

sudo apt install php8.1-fpm

After the installation has completed, confirm that PHP 8.1 FPM has installed correctly with this command

php-fpm8.1 -v

Install PHP 8.1 Extensions

Installing PHP extensions are simple with the following syntax.

sudo apt install php8.1-extension_name

Now, install some commonly used php-extensions with the following command.

sudo apt install php8.1-common php8.1-mysql php8.1-xml php8.1-xmlrpc php8.1-curl php8.1-gd php8.1-imagick php8.1-cli php8.1-dev php8.1-imap php8.1-mbstring php8.1-opcache php8.1-soap php8.1-zip php8.1-redis php8.1-intl -y

Configure PHP 8.1

Now we configure PHP for Web Applications by changing some values in php.ini file.

For PHP 8.1 with Apache the php.ini location will be in following directory.

sudo nano /etc/php/8.1/apache2/php.ini

For PHP 8.1 FPM with Nginx the php.ini location will be in following directory.

sudo nano /etc/php/8.1/fpm/php.ini

Hit F6 for search inside the editor and update the following values for better performance.

upload_max_filesize = 32M 
post_max_size = 48M 
memory_limit = 256M 
max_execution_time = 600 
max_input_vars = 3000 
max_input_time = 1000

Once you have modified your PHP settings you need to restart your Apache for the changes to take effect.

For users with Nginx to who use PHP-FPM, you need to restart PHP-FPM.

sudo service php8.1-fpm restart

Configure PHP 8.1 FPM Pools

PHP-FPM allows you to configure the user and group that the service will run under. You can modify these with these commands

sudo nano /etc/php/8.1/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

If you want to change the username name you can change the following lines by replacing the www-data with your username.

user = username 
group = username 
listen.owner = username
listen.group = username

Hit CTRL+X and Y to save the configuration and check if the configuration is correct and restart PHP.

Restart PHP 8.1 FPM

Once you have updated your PHP FPM settings you need to restart it to apply the changes.

sudo php-fpm8.1 -t 
sudo service php8.1-fpm restart

Now you are having PHP 8.1 Installed and configured.

Prepare yourself for a role working as an Information Technology Professional with Linux operating system

Upgrade to PHP 8.1 for Apache

Once you have installed PHP 8.1 you need to upgrade to the latest installed version of PHP.

You need to tell Apache to use the PHP 8.1version we installed right now. Disable the old PHP module (below I have mentioned php7.4, you need to use your current php version used by Apache) and enable the new PHP module using the following command.

Replace the current enabled PHP version with your version.

sudo a2dismod php7.4
sudo a2enmod php8.1

Restart Apache for the changes to take effect.

sudo service apache2 restart

Upgrade PHP 8.1 for Nginx

For Nginx you need to update the PHP-FPM socket in your Nginx configration located inside the sites-available directory. This will be located inside the location block location ~ \.php$

Edit your configuration…

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/your.conf

The line you need to modify will look like this…

fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock; 

You need to replace the old PHP version with the new version.

fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock; 

Test your configration.

sudo nginx -t

Save the file and exit the editor and restart Nginx for the changes to take effect.

sudo service nginx restart

Conclusion

Now you have learned how to install PHP 8.1 on your Ubuntu server for Apache and Nginx and also how to upgrade to latest version.

Thanks for your time. If you face any problem or any feedback, please leave a comment below.

Link: https://www.cloudbooklet.com/how-to-install-or-upgrade-php-8-1-on-ubuntu-20-04/

Increasing File Upload Size Limit In Nginx

 A common problem while running nginx as a frond end to php based Apache+mod_fastcgi server is the size that nginx allows you to upload. Sometimes the app allows user upload images up to 2MB in size. Other times when users try to upload 1.5MB or larger in size while using nginx reverse proxy, they are getting the following error on screen: “Nginx 413 Request Entity Too Large”. The question arises: how am I going to fix this problem and allow for image upload up to 2MB in size using nginx web-server working in reverse proxy, or by stand-alone mode on Unix like operating systems?

The error that you see, “413 – Request Entity Too Large”, notates that the web server is organized to restrict large file size. Nginx is able to be set to allow the maximum size of the client request body using the client_max_body_size directive. If the size of a request surpasses the configured value, the “413 error” is returned to the client.

Thus, you need to configure both nginx and php to allow an increase in upload size.

Increase file upload size limit in PHP-Nginx

If Nginx terminates your connection when uploading large files, you will see something like below in Nginx’s error logs:

[error] 25556#0: *52 client intended to send too large body:

This error message means that you must increase PHP file-upload size limit. Following steps given below will help you troubleshoot this common problem.

1. Changes in php.ini: to modify the max file upload size to 100MB, edit:

vim /etc/php7/fpm/php.ini

Then, set:

upload_max_filesize = 100M
post_max_size = 100M

Additional Notes:

As a rule of thumb, post_max_size must always be bigger than upload_max_filesize except for large numbers like 100M (which can safely make them equal).

Another variable is max_input_time which can potentially limit upload size. If your application allows uploads of file-size in GBs, you may need to adjust for this. If utilizing PHP-FPM behind Nginx, this setup has Nginx uploading files and then Nginx copies it to PHP. As Nginx to PHP copying will be the local operation max_input_time and may never create issue. Also, Nginx may not copy the file but may simply hand-over the location of file or descriptor records to PHP.

2. Change in Nginx config: Add following line to http{..} block in nginx config:

http {
#…
client_max_body_size 100m;
#…
}

Note: For very large files, it may be helpful to change the value of client_body_timeout parameter. The default is 60s.

Also, be sure to reload PHP-FPM & Nginx. This can be done with the following command:

Service php7-fpm reload

service nginx reload

3. Changes in WordPress-Multisite: When running WordPress Multisite setup, be sure to make one more change at the WordPress end.

Go to: Network Admin Dashboard >> Settings. Look for Upload Settings. Also change value for Max upload file size.

service --status-all

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/increase-file-upload-size-doesn-t-work-nginx-conf-php-ini