Install LEMP (Linux, Nginx, MySQL and PHP) Stack on Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS

I

‘m a new Ubuntu Linux user. How do I install the LEMP stack on an Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS server using command line options to serve dynamic web apps?

 

As one of the most popular Linux distribution in the world, Ubuntu has released the latest version on April 17, 2014. The latest version is 14.04 with code name Trusty Tahr. Ubunt 14.04 is a LTS (Long Term Support) version. This means that Ubuntu 14.04 will be supported for the next 5 years from the release date. In this tutorial we will cover Nginx, MySQL and PHP installation on Ubuntu Linux v14.04.

What is new in Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) version?

You may see it on cyberciti.biz or visit the Ubuntu home page at ubuntu.com.

Nginx Installation

Nginx is one of the robust web server in Linux world. Nginx is a free, open source, high performance HTTP server and reverse proxy, as weell as an IMAP/POP3 proxy server. Now, we are going to install Nginx web server.

First, make sure system is upto date:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

#1 – Download and Install Nginx

The easiest way to download and install Nginx is using apt-get command. Here is the command:

$ sudo apt-get install nginx

 

Fig.01: Download and Install Nginx on Ubuntu Linux

 

Just wait until installation is get done on the system.

#2 – Test Nginx

Once it get done, you can open your browser and type url http://localhost or http://your_ip_address to test it. If everything goes normal, you will see Nginx welcome page:

Fig.02: Welcome nginx page on Ubuntu Linux

MySQL Installation On Ubuntu

MySQL is one of the most powerful database management system in Linux world. Next, we are going to install it with PHP support.

#1 – Install MySQL and PHP support

Type the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server php5-mysql

 

Fig.03: Ubuntu Linux Install MySQL to Manage Site Data with PHP

 

During the installation, MySQL will ask you to enter MySQL root password, other wise the installation will not continue. Type the password you want, then press OK to continue the installation.

#2 – Test MySQL

Once mysql installation finished, we can test it. Open your console and type the following command:

$ mysql -u root -p

 

Fig.04: Ubuntu test Mysql installation

 

If you type your password correctly, the you will see the mysql prompt.

#3 – Securing access to MySQL

If we are going to use MySQL as a production database, we may want to secure it. MySQL provides a shell script to help us securing it. Just type the following command on your console:

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

 

Here are the steps to do it.

  1. ENTER YOUR ROOT PASSWORD
  2. Enter your current root password to continue to the next step.
  3. Fig.05: MySQL enter your root db password
  4. 2.CHANGE THE ROOT PASSWORD
  5. If you want to change it, press Y. Otherwise, press N.
  6. Fig.06: MySQL security
  7. 3.REMOVE ANONYMOUS USER
  8. It is recommended to remove anonymous user to mitigate risk who can log in into your database.
  9. Fig.07: MySQL security
  10. 4.DISALLOW ROOT LOGIN REMOTELY
  11. To make sure that no one remote your database as root from another machines, we need to disallow root login remotely.
  12. Fig.08: MySQL security
  13. 5.REMOVE TEST DATABASE
  14. Sometimes some MySQL installation will create a database named ëtestí for testing purpose. We can remove it if we donít use it.
  15. Fig.09: MySQL security
  16. 6.RELOAD PRIVILEGE TABLES
  17. Then we need to reloading the privilege tables to ensure all changes made so far will take effect immediately.
  18. Fig.10: MySQL security
  19. 7.DONE
  20. Fig.11: MySQL security
  21. PHP Installation For Server Side Scripting
  22. Since PHP is popular, a lot of websites is built using PHP language. As of January 2013, PHP was installed on more than 240 millions websites. Now we are going to install PHP on Ubuntu 14.04
  23. #1 – Download and install PHP
  24. As usual, we can download and install PHP using apt-get command. Just type the following command on your Ubuntu console or over the ssh based session:
  25. $ sudo apt-get install php5-fpm

Fig.12: Install PHP for Server Side Processing on Ubuntu

 

And wait for the installation to complete.

Configure Nginx to work with PHP and MySQL Server on Ubuntu

Now we have all components installed. The next step is we need to configure Nginx with PHP and MySQL. Let’s start to configure them.

#1 – Configure PHP5-FPM

PHP5-FPM configuration file is located at /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini. Open it with your text editor

$ sudo vi /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini

 

Change this parameter, from:

cgi.fix_pathinfo=1

 

to:

cgi.fix_pathinfo=0

 

Save and close the file and then restart php5-fpm service, type:

$ sudo service php5-fpm restart

#2 – Configure Nginx

Nginx configuration file is located at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf. But basically, we don’t need to touch it. The configuration of nginx website is located in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default file.

Open it, and uncomment lines:

location ~ \.php$ {

fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;

#       # NOTE: You should have  cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;  in php.ini

#

#       # With php5-cgi alone:

#        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;

#       # With php5-fpm:

fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;

fastcgi_index index.php;

include fastcgi_params;

}

Then restart the services.

$ sudo service nginx restart

 

Please make sure, on Ubuntu 14.04, we cannot use fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000. So make sure that the line is commented. Otherwise, on my machine, I got this error :

$ tail /var/log/nginx/error.log

2014/11/04 16:57:04 [emerg] 3216#0:  fastcgi_pass  directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:59

2014/11/04 16:58:21 [emerg] 3256#0:  fastcgi_pass  directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:59

 

On Ubuntu 14.04, I use the following line:

fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock

 

When I restart the Nginx and I still got the following error message:

 

2014/11/04 17:02:05 [emerg] 3295#0:  fastcgi_pass  directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:61

2014/11/04 17:04:58 [emerg] 3410#0:  fastcgi_pass  directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:61

 

Please make sure that you already uncomment this line:

location ~ \.php$ {

#3 – Configure MySQL

After the configuration section is done, now we need to test them to make sure that our configuration is working as required. On Ubuntu 14.04 the root document folder is located in /usr/share/nginx/html. So create a file called /usr/share/nginx/html/phpinfo.php with the following code:

<? phpinfo(); ?>

After restarting PHP-FPM and Nginx, open the browser and browse to the php file, we got only a blank screen. No error message on the screen. No error message on PHP-FPM and Nginx log file.

 

Then we changed /usr/share/nginx/html/phpinfo.php file code on the root document of Nginx, as follows:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

And then open the browser again and type url http://your_ip_address/phpinfo.php

 

It seem that by default, we can not use short php-tag like this:

<? … your code … ?>

To enable short php tag, we need to change the value of short_open_tag parameter on php.ini file:

 

Change the value from Off to On. Then restart your php5-fpm :

sudo service php5-fpm restart

 

Then try again to test your phpinfo file. Next, we will see if the MySQL support is enabled or not. Scroll down the php configuration screen on your browser, if you see MySQL block there, then MySQL support already enabled.

 

You are now ready to use Nginx, PHP5 and MySQL on Ubuntu server. I hope this quick article help anyone who wish to install Linux, Nginx, PHP and MySQL on Ubuntu 14.04.

This quick tutorial was contributed by Pungki Arianto. You can too contribute to nixCraft.

 

 

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