PHP

The PHP preset provides a full PHP development environment with nginx, PHP-FPM, and Composer pre-installed.

Available Versions

Version	Status
PHP 8.2	Supported
PHP 8.3	Default
PHP 8.4	Latest

Select a version when creating your pod. If not specified, PHP 8.3 is used.

instapods pods create my-app -p php --version 8.4

What’s Included

Component	Version	Details
nginx	Latest (Ubuntu 24.04)	Web server, proxies to PHP-FPM
PHP-FPM	8.2, 8.3, or 8.4 (your choice)	FastCGI process manager
Composer	Latest	PHP dependency manager (global)
git	Latest	Version control
SSH	OpenSSH	Access via dedicated port

Pre-installed PHP extensions: mbstring, xml, curl, mysql, pgsql, redis, zip, and more. Pre-installed utilities: curl, wget, vim, htop, unzip.

Directory Structure

/home/instapod/app/
├── public/
│   └── index.php       # Web-accessible entry point
├── composer.json        # (your project)
└── vendor/              # (after composer install)

App Root: /home/instapod/app
Public Root: /home/instapod/app/public
Port: 80 (nginx)
PHP-FPM socket: /run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock

nginx is configured to serve from /home/instapod/app/public. Place your entry point (index.php) there. Application code, configs, and vendor directory go in the parent /home/instapod/app.

Deploying Your App

Upload Files

instapods files sync my-php-app --local ./my-laravel-project

# Or use the deploy command
instapods deploy my-php-app --local ./my-laravel-project

Install Dependencies

instapods exec my-php-app -- composer install --no-dev

Reload Services

After deploying or updating your code:

instapods pods reload my-php-app

This restarts both PHP-FPM and nginx.

Routing

The nginx config includes try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string, which means all requests that don’t match a file are forwarded to index.php. This works out of the box for:

Laravel — all routes handled by public/index.php
Custom routers — write your own front controller in public/index.php

File Permissions

PHP-FPM runs as the www-data user. Files uploaded via the CLI or IDE are owned by root. If your PHP app needs to write to data directories (file uploads, JSON storage, cache), you must fix permissions:

instapods exec my-php-app -- chown -R www-data:www-data /home/instapod/app/data

For Laravel, also set writable permissions on storage and bootstrap/cache:

instapods exec my-php-app -- chown -R www-data:www-data /home/instapod/app/storage /home/instapod/app/bootstrap/cache

Adding a Database

PHP apps commonly need a database. Install one with:

# MySQL
instapods services add my-php-app -s mysql -w
instapods services creds my-php-app -s mysql

# PostgreSQL
instapods services add my-php-app -s postgresql -w

Database services require the Build plan or higher.

Use Cases

Laravel applications
Custom PHP APIs and REST services
Content management systems
PHP microservices

Getting Started

Dashboard

Presets

Services

SSH & Files

Guides

Partners

Support

Available Versions

What’s Included

Directory Structure

Deploying Your App

Upload Files

Install Dependencies

Reload Services

Routing

File Permissions

Adding a Database

Use Cases

​Available Versions

​What’s Included

​Directory Structure

​Deploying Your App

​Upload Files

​Install Dependencies

​Reload Services

​Routing

​File Permissions

​Adding a Database

​Use Cases

Available Versions

What’s Included

Directory Structure

Deploying Your App

Upload Files

Install Dependencies

Reload Services

Routing

File Permissions

Adding a Database

Use Cases