Setting Up a PHP 8.4 Development Environment

This guide walks through setting up a modern PHP development environment with PHP 8.4, MySQL 8, and nginx.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 22.04 or newer
• sudo access
• Basic terminal knowledge

Installing PHP 8.4

First, add the Ondrej PHP repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt update

Then install PHP 8.4 with common extensions:

sudo apt install php8.4-fpm php8.4-mysql php8.4-mbstring php8.4-xml php8.4-curl

Configuring nginx

Create a new site configuration:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name mysite.local;
    root /var/www/mysite/public;
    index index.php;

    location ~ .php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.4-fpm.sock;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

Testing Your Setup

Create a simple PHP file to verify everything works:

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

phpinfo();

Conclusion

You now have a working PHP 8.4 development environment. Happy coding!