DigitalOcean has just launched their most requested feature, FreeBSD droplets. So here is how to install Nginx with PHP support on one of their FreeBSD droplets.

All of the commands used in this post will require root or sudo access.

Install Nginx

pkg install nginx

Configure Nginx

Open /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf and edit the existing uncommented server { ... } section.

server {
    listen       80;

    ## Where to serve files from
    root /usr/local/www/nginx;

    index index.php index.html index.htm;

    ## Optionally change this to match the domain you want to listen on ex: www.example.com
    server_name  localhost;

    ## Attempt to serve file and fallback to 404 on fail.
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    ## Custom error pages
    error_page  404              /404.html;
    error_page  500 502 503 504  /50x.html;

    ## PHP FastCGI
    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri =404;
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        ## Optional fastcgi settigns
        #fastcgi_buffer_size 128k;
        #fastcgi_buffers 256 16k;
        #fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 256k;
        #fastcgi_temp_file_write_size 256k;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Install PHP 5.6

pkg install php56

Configure PHP 5.6

There are two sample php.ini files provided by default. A production and development version. Copy the one you would like to use to enable it.

cp /usr/local/etc/php.ini-production /usr/local/etc/php.ini

Make a small security adjustment to the php.ini. Find the commented line with:

; cgi.fix_pathinfo=1

Uncomment it and set it to 0

cgi.fix_pathinfo=0

Enable Services

Edit /etc/rc.conf and add:

nginx_enable="YES"
php_fpm_enable="YES"

Start Services

service php-fpm start

service nginx start

Create a Test page

Create an index.php under /usr/local/www/nginx with the content:

<?php
phpinfo();

Now point your browser to the ip or domain of your server and you will see all the settings for your PHP installation.