Increase PHP upload file size

By default, PHP limits file uploads to 2MB, which may not be sufficient for most of clients’ needs. If you need to upload larger files, such as 10MB, you must modify the PHP configuration. Here’s how you can achieve this step-by-step using Ubuntu’s command line. The same steps work for Debian too.

My setup:

• Ubuntu
• NGINX
• PHP 8.3
• FastCGI Process Manager (FPM)

Open your terminal and ensure you have root or sudo access. I have remote access to the server with root user with SSH key. All commands work for me without the sudo command.

In Debian based operating systems, like Ubuntu, PHP files are located under /etc/php. Since we are using NGINX, we want to make changes to FPM’s configurations. The right file is located at /etc/php/8.3/fpm/php.ini. If you would like to change PHP for Apache2, the right file would be /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini.

Open the file for editing using a text editor. I like to use nano.

sudo nano /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini

Search for the following directives in the file: upload_max_filesize and post_max_size. Use the search feature in nano by pressing CTRL + W and typing the directive name. Change the values to match your desired file size of 10MB. For example:

upload_max_filesize = 10M
post_max_size = 20M

After modifying these values, ensure you also verify the memory_limit directive. It should be set to a value large enough to handle your file uploads.

memory_limit = 32M

Save your changes by pressing CTRL + X, then Enter.

To apply the changes, restart your web server.

service php8.3-fpm restart

Test the new configuration to confirm the upload limit has increased. You can create a PHP script, for example, phpinfo.php, in your web root directory with the following content:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Access this file through your browser and look new values for upload_max_filesize and post_max_size. Once confirmed, remove the phpinfo.php file for security purposes.

Congratulations! You have successfully increased PHP’s upload file size limit on Ubuntu.