Configuring web servers: NGINX Unit and FreeUnit

Run Yii-based apps using NGINX Unit with a PHP language module. The same configuration format is used by FreeUnit, a community LTS fork of Unit. With FreeUnit Docker images, such as ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-php8.5, put the configuration in /var/lib/unit/config.json.

Here is a sample configuration.

{
    "listeners": {
        "*:80": {
            "pass": "routes"
        }
    },

    "routes": [
        {
            "match": {
                "uri": [
                    "!/assets/*",
                    "*.php",
                    "*.php/*"
                ]
            },

            "action": {
                "pass": "applications/yii/direct"
            }
        },
        {
            "action": {
                "share": "/path/to/app/public$uri",
                "fallback": {
                    "pass": "applications/yii/index"
                }
            }
        }
    ],

    "applications": {
        "yii": {
            "type": "php",
            "targets": {
                "direct": {
                    "root": "/path/to/app/public/"
                },

                "index": {
                    "root": "/path/to/app/public/",
                    "script": "index.php"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

You can also set up your PHP environment or supply a custom php.ini in the same configuration.

Since the Yii3 application template uses environment variables, you can set them in applications.yii.environment. In a production environment, remember to set APP_ENV to prod.