Install PHP7.4

By default, Debian ships with PHP 7.4 in its upstream repositories. You can install it easily by just running the following command:

apt-get install php7.4 -y

Once the PHP is installed, verify the installed version with the following command:

php --version

You should get the following output:

PHP 7.4.3 (cli) (built: Oct  6 2020 15:47:56) ( NTS )

Copyright (c) The PHP Group

Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies

    with Zend OPcache v7.4.3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

PHP configurations related to Nginx is stored in /etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini file. You can modify it for better performance.

Install PHP7.4-FPM and Other Extensions

Nginx does not contain native PHP processing. So you will need to install PHP-FPM for processing the PHP files. FPM is an alternative PHP FastCGI implementation with some additional features useful for heavy-loaded sites.

You can install PHP7.4-FPM with other necessary extensions by running the following command:

apt-get install php7.4-fpm php7.4-cli php7.4-mysql php7.4-curl php7.4-json -y

Once all the packages are installed, start the PHP7.4-FPM service and enable it to start at system reboot:

systemctl start php7.4-fpm

systemctl enable php7.4-fpm

Configure Nginx to Process PHP Files

Next, you will need to configure Nginx to process PHP files.

To do so, create a new Nginx virtual host configuration file with the following command:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example

Add the following lines:

server {

        listen 80;

        server_name test.example.com;

        root /var/www/html;

        index info.php;

    location ~ \.php$ {

        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

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

    }

}

Save and close the file then enable the Nginx virtual host configuration file with the following command:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Next, verify the Nginx for any syntax error with the following command:

nginx -t

You should get the following output:

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok

nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Finally, restart the Nginx service to apply the configuration changes:

systemctl restart nginx

Next, create a info.php file to verify the PHP version:

nano /var/www/html/info.php

Add the following code:

<?php phpinfo();

Save and close the file when you are finished.

Verify PHP

At this point, Nginx is configured to process PHP files. Its time to test it.