CodeIgniter 4 (CI4) is a lightweight PHP framework with a small footprint, excellent documentation, and a gentle learning curve. It is ideal for developers who want a fast, simple MVC framework without heavy dependencies. This guide deploys CodeIgniter 4 on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS with Nginx and PHP 8.4.

Tested and valid on:

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

Prerequisites

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS with Nginx, PHP 8.4-FPM, and MySQL
Composer installed globally

Step 1 – Create a New CI4 Project

cd /var/www
sudo composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter myci4app
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/myci4app

Step 2 – Configure the Environment

cp /var/www/myci4app/env /var/www/myci4app/.env
nano /var/www/myci4app/.env

Set:

CI_ENVIRONMENT = production
app.baseURL = 'https://example.com/'
app.forceGlobalSecureRequests = true

Step 3 – Configure Database

In .env:

database.default.hostname = localhost
database.default.database = myci4db
database.default.username = ci4user
database.default.password = CI4Pass2026!
database.default.DBDriver = MySQLi

Step 4 – Set Up Nginx

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/myci4app

Add:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    root /var/www/myci4app/public;
    index index.php;
    location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args; }
    location ~ .php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.4-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/myci4app /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

Step 5 – Set Permissions

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/myci4app
sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www/myci4app/writable

Step 6 – Run Migrations

cd /var/www/myci4app && php spark migrate

Step 7 – Test the Application

Visit http://example.com. You should see the CodeIgniter 4 welcome page.

Conclusion

CodeIgniter 4 is deployed on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. Its spark CLI tool lets you create controllers, models, and migrations rapidly. Add SSL with Certbot and configure a Redis cache for session storage in production.

How to Install CodeIgniter 4 on Ubuntu 26.04