LAMP Server on Ubuntu

Are You a web developer ? This tutorial is for you. Lets learn how to build a server on Ubuntu for testing our websites before loading on internet server.

About LAMP
LAMP stack is a group of open source software used to get web servers up and running. The acronym stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Since the virtual private server is already running Ubuntu, the linux part is taken care of. Here is how to install the rest.

1. Install Apache
To install Apache you must install the Metapackage apache2. This can be done by running the following command.

sudo apt-get install apache2

2. Install MySQL
To install MySQL you must install the Metapackage mysql-server. This can be done by running the following command.

sudo apt-get install mysql-server libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql

During the installation, MySQL will ask you to set a root password. If you miss the chance to set the password while the program is installing, it is very easy to set the password later from within the MySQL shell.

Once you have installed MySQL, we should activate it with this command:

sudo mysql_install_db

Finish up by running the MySQL set up script:

sudo /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

The prompt will ask you for your current root password.
Type it in.

Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Then the prompt will ask you if you want to change the root password. Go ahead and choose N and move on to the next steps.
It’s easiest just to say Yes to all the options. At the end, MySQL will reload and implement the new changes.

By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MySQL without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y                                          
 ... Success!
Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
... Success!
By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
 - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!
Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!
Cleaning up...

3. Install PHP
To install PHP you must install the Metapackages php5 and libapache2-mod-php5. This can be done by running the following command.

sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mcrypt

After you answer yes to the prompt twice, PHP will install itself.
It may also be useful to add php to the directory index, to serve the relevant php index files:

sudo gedit /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/dir.conf

Add index.php to the beginning of index files. The page should now look like this:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
          DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.cgi index.pl index.php index.xhtml index.htm
</IfModule>

PHP Modules
PHP also has a variety of useful libraries and modules that you can add onto your virtual server. You can see the libraries that are available.

apt-cache search php5-

Terminal will then display the list of possible modules. The beginning looks like this:

php5-cgi - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language (CGI binary)
php5-cli - command-line interpreter for the php5 scripting language
php5-common - Common files for packages built from the php5 source
php5-curl - CURL module for php5
php5-dbg - Debug symbols for PHP5
php5-dev - Files for PHP5 module development
php5-gd - GD module for php5
php5-gmp - GMP module for php5
php5-ldap - LDAP module for php5
php5-mysql - MySQL module for php5
php5-odbc - ODBC module for php5
php5-pgsql - PostgreSQL module for php5
php5-pspell - pspell module for php5
php5-recode - recode module for php5
php5-snmp - SNMP module for php5
php5-sqlite - SQLite module for php5
php5-tidy - tidy module for php5
php5-xmlrpc - XML-RPC module for php5
php5-xsl - XSL module for php5
php5-adodb - Extension optimising the ADOdb database abstraction library
php5-auth-pam - A PHP5 extension for PAM authentication
[...]

Once you decide to install the module, type:

sudo apt-get install <name of the module>

You can install multiple libraries at once by separating the name of each module with a space.

Restart Server
Your server should restart Apache automatically after the installation of both MySQL and PHP. If it doesn't, execute this command.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

OR

sudo service apache2 restart

Check Apache
Open a web browser and navigate to

http://localhost/

You should see a message saying It works!

Check PHP
You can check your PHP by executing any PHP file from within /var/www/. Alternatively you can execute the following command, which will make PHP run the code without the need for creating a file .
Although LAMP is installed, we can still take a look and see the components online by creating a quick php info page

To set this up, first create a new file:

sudo nano /var/www/info.php

Add in the following line:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Then Save and Exit.

Finish up by visiting your php info page: http://localhost/info.php

 Congratulations, you have just Installed a Ubuntu LAMP Server!

Install phpMyAdmin