WSL2 Laravel‑PHP Development Toolkit

Spin up a complete Nginx + Redis + multi‑version PHP stack on WSL2 Ubuntu 22.04 with just a handful of commands.

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Prerequisites

What	Why
Windows 10/11 + WSL 2	Follow Microsoft’s WSL 2 guide if you haven’t.
Ubuntu 22.04 inside WSL 2	Other distros work, but the commands below assume Deb/Ubuntu paths.
Optional but recommended – systemd enabled in WSL	Lets systemctl manage Nginx, Redis, PHP‑FPM, etc.

Enable systemd (once)

1. Edit /etc/wsl.conf in the WSL terminal:

# /etc/wsl.conf
[boot]
systemd=true

2 Install Nginx

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nginx
sudo systemctl enable --now nginx   # starts it and autostarts at boot

Install Redis (server + CLI)

sudo apt-get install lsb-release curl gpg
curl -fsSL https://packages.redis.io/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg
sudo chmod 644 /usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg] https://packages.redis.io/deb $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/redis.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install redis

sudo systemctl enable redis-server
sudo systemctl start redis-server

Test Redis is accepting commands:

redis-cli ping   # → PONG

Firewall note (Windows): WSL2 listens only on the VM’s virtual NIC. If you need external access (e.g., from the host to Redis), create a Windows firewall rule or use wsl --ip forwarding.

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3  Install the PHP Helper Toolkit

The toolkit gives you two commands:

• phpinstall <version> – installs PHP x.y with a full extension set
• phpswitch <version> – flips CLI + FPM + Nginx socket to that version
• serve <domain> - starts nginx config with foldername as domain.test

Run the one‑liner (no sudo—the script uses it internally where needed):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kalprajsolutions/wsl2-laravel-php-development/main/install-php-toolkit.sh | bash
# – or –
wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kalprajsolutions/wsl2-laravel-php-development/main/install-php-toolkit.sh | bash

What it does

• Downloads functions.sh to ~/.local/lib/wsl2-php-toolkit/
• Appends source ~/.local/lib/wsl2-php-toolkit/functions.sh to your ~/.bashrc
• You’ll have the commands in every new shell.

Reload the shell once:

source ~/.bashrc   # or open a new tab

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4  Example workflow

# Install PHP 8.3 + common extensions + FPM
phpinstall 8.3

# Install PHP 8.1 side‑by‑side
phpinstall 8.1

# Switch Nginx + CLI to PHP 8.1 (creates /run/php/php-fpm.sock link)
phpswitch 8.1

Verify:

php -v
curl -s http://localhost | grep "PHP Version"

If nginx gives 404 cause of permissions issues run below comamnd and restart

sudo usermod -a -G $USER www-data

Update Laravel Installer after switching phpversion

composer global update laravel/installer