LAMP (software bundle)

How to setup a lamp stack using Ubuntu.
Linux, Apache, MariaDB, PHP

Setup

Install Ubuntu

Download and install the latest Ubuntu LTS.

If you need VNC, I recommend downloading Ubuntu Desktop and installing x11vnc, lightdm, and cinnamon.
If you don't need a desktop or are low on storage, you can just install Ubuntu Server.

Note

Other popular linux distros for servers are Debian and CentOS.
- See Linux distributions for more info.
- I do not have much experience with these RHEL distros: Fedora, CentOS.

Install Apache

See [1]

sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2

# Enable some basic modules
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod ssl
sudo a2enmod headers
sudo a2enmod proxy
sudo a2enmod proxy_wstunnel
sudo a2enmod deflate

Installing PHP

Installing php 7.4 on 20.04

sudo apt update
sudo apt install php7.4 php7.4-fpm

# Install some common extensions
sudo apt install php7.4-{apcu,bcmath,cli,common,curl,dev,gd,gmp,imagick,imap,intl,mysql,xml,xmlrpc,mbstring,opcache,redis,soap,zip} -y

# Setup Apache to use php7.4-fpm
sudo a2enmod proxy_fcgi setenvif
sudo a2enconf php7.4-fpm
sudo a2dismod php7.4
sudo a2dismod mpm_prefork
sudo a2enmod mpm_event
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Important Notes

Always use a version when installing things if you don't want things to break when you do updates
- E.g. php7.4-common instead of php-common
For Ubuntu 18.04, add the following repository
sudo apt install software-properties-common && sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Installing MariaDB

See https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories/

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo apt-key adv --fetch-keys 'https://mariadb.org/mariadb_release_signing_key.asc'
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64,arm64,ppc64el] http://sfo1.mirrors.digitalocean.com/mariadb/repo/10.4/ubuntu bionic main'

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mariadb-server

Securing for Production

MariaDB and MySQL provide a bash command mysql_secure_installation.
This command does the following:

Sets a root password
Remove anonymous users
Disallow root login remotely
Removes test databases

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Misc

Install nodejs via nvm

Firewall

If you're using a VPS or computer connected directly to the internet, you will want to install a firewall.
See UbuntuWiki: UncomplicatedFirewall
See Digital ocean ufw essentials

sudo ufw allow ssh/tcp
sudo ufw logging on
sudo ufw enable
sudo ufw status

You should get an output like:

Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
22/tcp                     ALLOW       Anywhere
22/tcp (v6)                ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

To enable certain ports:

ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp