LAMP on Ubuntu 14.04

A LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack is a common web stack used for hosting web content. This guide shows you how to install a LAMP stack on an Ubuntu 14.04 (LTS) server.

Note

This guide is written for a non-root user. Commands that require elevated privileges are prefixed with sudo. If you’re not familiar with the sudo command, you can check our Users and Groups guide.

Before You Begin

1. Ensure that you have followed the Getting Started and Securing Your Server guides, and the Linode’s hostname is set.

2. Update your system:

   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
   

Apache

Install and Configure

1. Install Apache 2.4:

   sudo apt-get install apache2
   

2. Edit the main Apache configuration file, apache2.conf, to adjust the KeepAlive setting:

   File: /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

   1	KeepAlive Off

3. The default multi-processing module (MPM) for Apache is the event module, but by default PHP uses the prefork module. Open the mpm_prefork.conf file located in /etc/apache2/mods-available and edit the configuration. Below is the suggested values for a 2GB Linode:

   File: /etc/apache2/mods-available/mpm_prefork.conf

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   <IfModule mpm_prefork_module> StartServers 4 MinSpareServers 20 MaxSpareServers 40 MaxRequestWorkers 200 MaxConnectionsPerChild 4500 </IfModule>

4. Disable the event module and enable prefork:

   sudo a2dismod mpm_event
   sudo a2enmod mpm_prefork
   

5. Restart Apache:

   sudo service apache2 restart
   

Configure Virtual Hosts

There are several different ways to set up virtual hosts; however, below is the recommended method. By default, Apache listens on all IP addresses available to it.

1. Within the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory, create a configuration file for your website, example.com.conf, replacing example.com with your own domain information:

   File: /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf

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   <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com ServerName example.com ServerAlias www.example.com DocumentRoot /var/www/html/example.com/public_html/ ErrorLog /var/www/html/example.com/logs/error.log CustomLog /var/www/html/example.com/logs/access.log combined <Directory /path/to/public/website/> Require all granted </Directory> </VirtualHost>

   Note

   The ErrorLog and CustomLog entries are suggested for more fine-grained logging but are not required. If they are defined (as shown above), the logs directories must be created before you restart Apache.

2. Create the above-referenced directories:

   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/example.com/public_html
   sudo mkdir /var/www/html/example.com/logs
   

3. Link your virtual host file from the sites-available directory to the sites-enabled directory:

   sudo a2ensite example.com.conf
   

   Note

   If you later need to disable your website, run:

   a2dissite example.com.conf

4. Reload Apache:

   sudo service apache2 reload
   

   Assuming that you have configured the DNS for your domain to point to your Linode’s IP address, virtual hosting for your domain should now work.

   If there are additional websites you wish to add to your Linode repeat the above steps to add them.

MySQL

Install and Configure

1. Install the mysql-server package:

   sudo apt-get install mysql-server
   

   Choose a secure password when prompted.

2. Run mysql_secure_installation, a program that helps secure MySQL. You will be presented with the opportunity to change the MySQL root password, remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of localhost, and remove test databases:

   mysql_secure_installation
   

Create a MySQL Database

1. Log into MySQL:

   mysql -u root -p
   

   Enter MySQL’s root password, and you’ll be presented with a MySQL prompt.

2. Create a database and a user with permissions for it. In this example the database is called webdata, the user webuser and password password:

   create database webdata;
   grant all on webdata.* to 'webuser' identified by 'password';
   

3. Exit MySQL:

   quit
   

PHP

1. Install PHP, and the PHP Extension and Application Repository:

   sudo apt-get install php5 php-pear
   

   If you need MySQL support also install php5-mysql

   sudo apt-get install php5-mysql
   

2. Once PHP5 is installed, tune the configuration file located in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini to enable more descriptive errors, logging, and better performance. The following modifications provide a good starting point:

   File: /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

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   error_reporting = E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR error_log = /var/log/php/error.log max_input_time = 30

   Note

   Ensure the lines above are uncommented. Commented lines begin with a semicolon (;).

3. Create the log directory for PHP and give the Apache user ownership:

   sudo mkdir /var/log/php
   sudo chown www-data /var/log/php
   

4. Reload Apache:

   sudo service apache2 reload
   

Congratulations! You have now set up and configured a LAMP stack.

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• Ubuntu Server Edition Homepage
• Apache HTTP Server Documentation
• MySQL Documentation
• PHP Documentation