Configure Nginx for serving a Laravel web application

# Stop and disable Apache
laravel@server$ sudo systemctl stop apache2.service
laravel@server$ sudo systemctl disable apache2.service

# Remove all Apache-related packages
laravel@server$ sudo apt purge apache2*
laravel@server$ sudo apt autoremove

# Install, enable, and start Nginx
laravel@server$ sudo apt install nginx
laravel@server$ sudo systemctl enable --now nginx.service

# Create an Nginx config for your Laravel app
laravel@server$ sudoedit /etc/nginx/sites-available/laravel-project

server {
  # Listen for connections on port 80 (HTTP)
  listen 80;
  # Add this if using IPv6 on your server
  # listen [::]:80;

  # IP addresses and domain names that should point to your app.
  # Set this to your server's IP address (and/or domain name, if you've set up DNS).
  server_name 1.2.3.4;
  # server_name 1.2.3.4 example.com;  # if using a domain name

  # The root directory for incoming web requests.
  # Set this to the full path to your Laravel app's `public` subdirectory,
  # which is the entry point to Laravel applications.
  root /srv/www/laravel-project/public;

  # This sets the X-Frame-Options HTTP response header such that your site can
  # be embedded in a frame only if the site including it is the same as the one
  # serving the page.
  # This supposedly serves to prevent click-jacking attacks; for details see
  # https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Frame-Options
  add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";

  # This sets the X-Content-Type-Options HTTP response header to help revent
  # MIME type sniffing. For details see
  # https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Content-Type-Options
  add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";

  # Use PHP (and not HTML) index files (because Laravel is PHP-based).
  index index.php;

  # Specify UTF-8 character encoding in Content-Type HTTP response header fields.
  charset utf-8;

  # The order recommended by Laravel for Nginx to check for the existence of
  # files based on a URI or query string.
  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
  }

  # Disable logging related to favicon and robots.txt files.
  location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
  location = /robots.txt  { access_log off; log_not_found off; }

  # Redirect to the home page (i.e. /index.php) on 404 errors.
  error_page 404 /index.php;

  # Laravel's recommended settings for handling requests for PHP files.
  location ~ \.php$ {
    # The `fastcgi_pass` directive should point to the address of the FastCGI
    # Process Manager (FPM) on your server. The value below should be correct,
    # but you might need to tweak the PHP version (from e.g. 8.1 to 8.2)
    # depending on the PHP version installed on your server
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    include fastcgi_params;
  }

  # Denies all attempts to access hidden files that are not associated with
  # well-known services. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-known_URI
  location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
    deny all;
  }
}

# Create a symlink enabling your Laravel app
laravel@server$ cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
laravel@server:sites-enabled$ sudo ln -s ../sites-available/laravel-project laravel-project

# Remove the active link to the default Nginx splash page
laravel@server:sites-enabled$ sudo rm default

# Test syntax of Nginx config file for errors/misconfiguration
laravel@server$ sudo nginx -t

# Restart Nginx
laravel@server$ sudo systemctl restart nginx.service