LEMP Stacks

The LEMP stacks are much more complicated to install. But, I would still like to share how to install. Two pages down and we'll get more into NGINX, but it fits better here. Let's install the prerequisites: start with updating the system sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y. Now install some commands we'll need: sudo apt install -y curl wget unzip gnupg2 software-properties-common. Then the dependencies: sudo apt install nginx mariadb-server mariadb-client unzip -y. NGINX should start, but just in case, run sudo systemctl enable --now nginx. Same with MariaDB: sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb. Then run mysql and you should see a screen saying similar to this:

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 9
Server version: 11.8.6-MariaDB-0+deb13u1 from Debian -- Please help get to 10k stars at https://github.com/MariaDB/Server

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]>

# Nextcloud nginx configuration — root installation

# PHP-FPM backend.
upstream php-handler {
    # Use one of the options below, not both:
    #server 127.0.0.1:9000;
    server unix:/run/php/php8.4-fpm.sock;                         #replace with your PHP version
}

# Set the `immutable` cache control options only for assets with a cache busting `v` argument
map $arg_v $asset_immutable {
    "" "";
    default ", immutable";
}

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name _;                      

    # Prevent nginx HTTP Server Detection
    server_tokens off;

    # Enforce HTTPS
    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
#    listen 443      ssl;
#    listen [::]:443 ssl;
    http2 on;

    listen 9000;

    server_name _;                      

    # Path to the root of your installation
    root /var/www/nextcloud;

    # Use Mozilla's guidelines for SSL/TLS settings
    # https://mozilla.github.io/server-side-tls/ssl-config-generator/

    # Prevent nginx HTTP Server Detection
    server_tokens off;

    # HSTS settings
    # WARNING: Only add the preload option once you read about
    # the consequences in https://hstspreload.org/. This option
    # will add the domain to a hardcoded list that is shipped
    # in all major browsers and getting removed from this list
    # could take several months.
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains" always;

    # set max upload size and increase upload timeout:
    client_max_body_size 512M;
    client_body_timeout 300s;
    fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

    # Proxy and client response timeouts
    # Uncomment an increase these if facing timeout errors during large file uploads
    #keepalive_timeout 60s;
    #proxy_connect_timeout 60s;
    #proxy_send_timeout 60s;
    #proxy_read_timeout 60s;
    #send_timeout 60s;

    # Enable gzip but do not remove ETag headers
    gzip on;
    gzip_vary on;
    gzip_comp_level 4;
    gzip_min_length 256;
    gzip_proxied expired no-cache no-store private no_last_modified no_etag auth;
    gzip_types application/atom+xml text/javascript application/javascript application/json application/ld+json application/manifest+json application/rss+xml application/vnd.geo+json application/vnd.ms-fontobject application/wasm application/x-font-ttf application/x-web-app-manifest+json application/xhtml+xml application/xml font/opentype image/bmp image/svg+xml image/x-icon text/cache-manifest text/css text/plain text/vcard text/vnd.rim.location.xloc text/vtt text/x-component text/x-cross-domain-policy;

    # Pagespeed is not supported by Nextcloud, so if your server is built
    # with the `ngx_pagespeed` module, uncomment this line to disable it.
    #pagespeed off;

    # The settings allows you to optimize the HTTP2 bandwidth.
    # See https://blog.cloudflare.com/delivering-http-2-upload-speed-improvements/
    # for tuning hints
    client_body_buffer_size 512k;

    # HTTP response headers borrowed from Nextcloud `.htaccess`
    add_header Referrer-Policy                   "no-referrer"                                   always;
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options            "nosniff"                                       always;
    add_header X-Frame-Options                   "SAMEORIGIN"                                    always;
    add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies "none"                                          always;
    add_header X-Robots-Tag                      "noindex, nofollow"                             always;
    add_header Permissions-Policy                "camera=(), microphone=(), geolocation=()"      always;
    add_header Content-Security-Policy           "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval'; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'; img-src 'self' data: blob:; font-src 'self'; connect-src 'self'; frame-ancestors 'self'" always;

    # Remove X-Powered-By, which is an information leak
    fastcgi_hide_header X-Powered-By;

    # Set .mjs and .wasm MIME types
    # Either include it in the default mime.types list
    # and include that list explicitly or add the file extension
    # only for Nextcloud like below:
    include mime.types;
    types {
        text/javascript  mjs;
        application/wasm wasm;
    }

    # Specify how to handle directories -- specifying `/index.php$request_uri`
    # here as the fallback means that Nginx always exhibits the desired behaviour
    # when a client requests a path that corresponds to a directory that exists
    # on the server. In particular, if that directory contains an index.php file,
    # that file is correctly served; if it doesn't, then the request is passed to
    # the front-end controller. This consistent behaviour means that we don't need
    # to specify custom rules for certain paths (e.g. images and other assets,
    # `/updater`, `/ocs-provider`), and thus
    # `try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$request_uri`
    # always provides the desired behaviour.
    index index.php index.html /index.php$request_uri;

    # Rule borrowed from `.htaccess` to handle Microslop DAV clients
    location = / {
        if ( $http_user_agent ~ ^DavClnt ) {
            return 302 /remote.php/webdav/$is_args$args;
        }
    }

    location = /robots.txt {
        allow all;
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
    }

    # Make a regex exception for `/.well-known` so that clients can still
    # access it despite the existence of the regex rule
    # `location ~ /(\.|autotest|...)` which would otherwise handle requests
    # for `/.well-known`.
    location ^~ /.well-known {
        # The rules in this block are an adaptation of the rules
        # in `.htaccess` that concern `/.well-known`.

        location = /.well-known/carddav { return 301 /remote.php/dav/; }
        location = /.well-known/caldav  { return 301 /remote.php/dav/; }

        location /.well-known/acme-challenge    { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; }
        location /.well-known/pki-validation    { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; }

        # Let Nextcloud's API for `/.well-known` URIs handle all other
        # requests by passing them to the front-end controller.
        return 301 /index.php$request_uri;
    }

    # Rules borrowed from `.htaccess` to hide certain paths from clients
    location ~ ^/(?:build|tests|config|lib|3rdparty|templates|data)(?:$|/)  { return 404; }
    location ~ ^/(?:\.|autotest|occ|issue|indie|db_|console)                { return 404; }

    # Hide metadata files which would otherwise be served as plain files and
    # leak dependency information (composer.json, package.json, core/shipped.json).
    location ~ ^/(?:composer\.(?:json|lock)|package(?:-lock)?\.json|core/shipped\.json)$ { return 404; }

    # Pass PHP requests to PHP-FPM.
    #
    # Important: this block must appear above the static asset locations
    # below. Those locations fall back to `/index.php$request_uri`; if
    # they appear first, nginx can repeatedly rewrite to `/index.php`,
    # causing an internal redirection loop.
    location ~ \.php(?:$|/) {
        # Rewrite most PHP requests to Nextcloud's front controller (`/index.php`).
        #
        # (Mirrors the rewrite exceptions in Nextcloud's Apache .htaccess.)
        #
        # Exceptions (not rewritten; must remain directly reachable):
        #   index.php, remote.php, public.php, cron.php, status.php
        #   ocs/v1.php, ocs/v2.php, ocs-provider/*
        #   core/ajax/update.php, updater/*
        #   */richdocumentscode(_arm64)?/proxy
        #
        # Other exceptions (e.g. /.well-known) are handled by dedicated
        # location blocks elsewhere in this config.
        #
        # Caution: small edits to this regex can break routing or introduce
        # rewrite loops.
        rewrite ^/(?!index|remote|public|cron|status|ocs\/v[12]|ocs-provider\/.+|core\/ajax\/update|updater\/.+|.+\/richdocumentscode(_arm64)?\/proxy) /index.php$request_uri;

        # Split `/file.php/path/info` into:
        # - $fastcgi_script_name: `/file.php`
        # - $fastcgi_path_info:   `/path/info`
        #
        # This is required for entry-points such as `remote.php` and `public.php`,
        # which route requests based on PATH_INFO.
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(/.*)$;
        set $path_info $fastcgi_path_info;    # Save before try_files resets it

        # Return 404 for nonexistent PHP scripts (avoids passing arbitrary
        # paths to PHP-FPM, which is a known security risk).
        try_files $fastcgi_script_name =404;

        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass php-handler;

        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME            $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO                  $path_info;
        fastcgi_param HTTPS                      on;       # Assumes TLS terminates here
        fastcgi_param modHeadersAvailable        true;     # Avoid duplicate security headers
        fastcgi_param front_controller_active    true;     # Enable pretty URLs

        # Let nginx handle HTTP error responses from PHP-FPM (e.g. custom
        # error pages). Disable for debugging if PHP errors are being hidden.
        fastcgi_intercept_errors on;

        # Required for uploads: PHP-FPM does not support chunked
        # transfer encoding and needs a Content-Length header.
        fastcgi_request_buffering on;

        # Optional PHP-FPM timeout tuning (e.g. for 504 response timeouts).
        # Increase these only if uploads or long-running PHP requests are
        # timing out in your environment.
        #fastcgi_read_timeout 60s;
        #fastcgi_send_timeout 60s;
        #fastcgi_connect_timeout 60s;

        # Disable on-disk buffering of FastCGI responses (reduces disk I/O at
        # the cost of holding responses in memory).
        fastcgi_max_temp_file_size 0;
    }

    # Serve static files
    location ~ \.(?:css|js|mjs|svg|gif|ico|jpg|png|webp|wasm|tflite|map|ogg|flac|mp4|webm)$ {
        try_files $uri /index.php$request_uri;
        # HTTP response headers borrowed from Nextcloud `.htaccess`
        add_header Cache-Control                     "public, max-age=15778463$asset_immutable" always;
        add_header Referrer-Policy                   "no-referrer"                              always;
        add_header X-Content-Type-Options            "nosniff"                                  always;
        add_header X-Frame-Options                   "SAMEORIGIN"                               always;
        add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies "none"                                     always;
        add_header X-Robots-Tag                      "noindex, nofollow"                        always;
        access_log off;     # Optional: Don't log access to assets
    }

    location ~ \.(otf|woff2?)$ {
        try_files $uri /index.php$request_uri;
        expires 7d;         # Cache-Control policy borrowed from `.htaccess`
        access_log off;     # Optional: Don't log access to assets
    }

    # Rule borrowed from `.htaccess`
    location /remote {
        return 301 /remote.php$request_uri;
    }

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$request_uri;
    }
}

If you followed the NGINX guide and would like to add HTTPS, just replace the underscore in server_name _; with your domain name and then run sudo certbot --nginx -d your.domain.com.

Enjoy cloud storage.

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Any issues with this guide, shoot me an email "[email protected]"

Date created: August 19th, 2026

Last modified: August 26th, 2026