You shall soon all be able to see 12 mb photos on this blog! Yes, I finally decided I was sick of 2 mb photo uploads, and upped the level.
It was slightly complicated, which is why I haven’t done it before. I am posting the details for future reference.
# https://medium.com/@stefanledin/increase-file-upload-size-in-wordpress-on-nginx-server-19626f4ef8b9
# find the php.ini file
php --ini | head -n 1
# which returned the wrong place:
cd /etc/php/7.4/cli
# instead replace cli with fpm
cd /etc/php/7.4/fpm
sudo nano php.ini
post_max_size = 12M
upload_max_filesize = 12M
php_value max_execution_time 300
php_value max_input_time 300
sudo service php7.4-fpm restart
# now edit the nginx config
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-avaliable/syllepsis.live
# while here I also had to upgrade to php7.4
# https://websiteforstudents.com/upgrade-wordpress-to-php-7-4-php-7-4-fpm-on-ubuntu-18-04-16-04/
# the sticky part of this was I didn't realize you had to redirect in the nginx config file.