Step 8: Configure Nginx

Create an Nginx server block:


nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/ai-education-studio

Add the following configuration:


server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/ai-education-studio/public;
 
    index index.php index.html;
 
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }
 
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
 
    location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
        deny all;
    }
 
    location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|ico|css|js|svg|woff|woff2|ttf|eot)$ {
        expires 30d;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
    }
}

Enable the site:


ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/ai-education-studio /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t
systemctl reload nginx

Info: The try_files directive is critical. It ensures that Laravel handles all routing (including React Router paths) instead of Nginx returning 404s.