Ubuntu 26.04 Nginx Build Outline

Details: Last Updated: 21 June 2026

Nginx
Ubuntu

I re-built my LEMP web-server fresh on Ubuntu 26.04 and learned some things along the way. This is my base build outline mostly created for my own notes.

REMOVE UFW
Ubuntu came with ufw pre-installed and blocking all inbound web traffic. As this doesn't work for a web-server, I simply removed it entirely:
apt purge ufw

Why not just set it up properly? Because I use my cloud host's network-based firewall instead.

REMOVE APACHE2
Apache was installed by default, and it conflicts with NGINX, causing it not to start properly. Let's get rid of it.

apt purge apache2

INSTALL PACKAGES
nginx nginx-extras
mysql-server

php php-curl php-fpm php-gd php-mysql php-xmlrpc php-memcache
php-uploadprogress php-cli php-intl

CHECK HOSTS / HOSTNAME
Check /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname to make sure you have a proper FQDN. If not, set it with

hostnamectl set-hostname myhostname.example.com

SETUP MYSQL
I. MySQL Secure Installation
* Do not use the validation plugin because it doesn't work with PHPMYADMIN.

mysql_secure_installation

II. Set MySQL root password

mysql -u root

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH
caching_sha2_password BY 'PASSWORD-GOES-HERE';



FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

EXIT;



systemctl restart mysql.service

SETUP PHP.INI
After looking at various sample PHP configs, I found just a few key variables in php.ini that are most often tweaked:
php.ini is here on Ubuntu 26.04: /etc/php/8.5/fpm/

I. Data Handling / File Uploads
post_max_size = 512 (as you like)
upload_max_filesize= 512 (as you like)
register_argc_argv = Off (default)

II. Resource Limits
max_execution_time = 30 (default)
max_input_time = 60 (default)
max_input_vars = 1000 (default)
memory_limit = 128 (default)

III. Language Options
output_buffering = Off (Joomla wants this)

PHP PM.MAX_CHILDREN
Open this config file:
/etc/php/8.5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Find pm.max_children and raise it to something like 10 or more.
Monitor the PHP logs for pm.max_children errors.

INSTALL / SETUP PHPMYADMIN
apt install phpmyadmin
NGINX
I. Setup Self-Signed SSL Certs
mkdir /etc/nginx/ssl openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/nginx/ssl/selfssl.key -out /etc/nginx/ssl/selfssl.crt

SETUP CRONTAB
Reconfigure any cron jobs from the old server:
crontab -e -u www-dataMIGRATE JOOMLA
I used Akeeba Backup's SSH post-processing option (non-CURL) to migrate Joomla to the new server. The package PHP SSH2 was required on the source server...
apt install php-ssh2