Install LAMP Stack on Rocky Linux 8 [Step-by-Step]

 

Install LAMP Stack on Rocky Linux 8

LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP. This is a stack that is normally used together to build powerful websites and web applications.

Linux is the operating system where this stack runs. Apache is the webserver that runs on the server, MySQL/MariaDB is the database server and PHP is the web scripting language that is used for the backend server-database communication in web application development.

This guide shall cover how to set up the LAMP stack on Rocky Linux 8. Rocky Linux 8 is the new operating system that was designed by the community to replace the now ending CentOS. This is after the news that CentOS will be moved to CentOS stream. This means that CentOS won't be receiving stable releases and shall mainly be used for testing purposes.

The steps below can be followed to install and configure LAMP stack on Rocky Linux 8.

 

Prerequisites

Before you can proceed with the steps to install lamp stack, make sure your system has at least the following minimal requirements:

1. 4GB RAM
2. 4 vCPUs
3. 50GB disk
4. Normal User with sudo permissions

We have already installed Rocky Linux 8 on our Oracle Virtual Box environment.

 

Step 1. Install Apache Web server

Install Apache webserver available from Rocky Linux Appstream repositories.

[root@rockylinux ~]# yum install @httpd

...

Installed:
  httpd-2.4.37-39.module+el8.4.0+571+fd70afb1.x86_64   httpd-filesystem-2.4.37-39.module+el8.4.0+571+fd70afb1.noarch   
  mod_http2-1.15.7-3.module+el8.4.0+553+7a69454b.x86_64   mod_ssl-1:2.4.37-39.module+el8.4.0+571+fd70afb1.x86_64   
  rocky-logos-httpd-84.5-8.el8.noarch  
  sscg-2.3.3-14.el8.x86_64                            

Complete!

 

Step 2. Configure Firewall

Allow HTTP and HTTPD service through the firewall

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service={http,https}
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Visit the the server's web page on http://server-ip or http://FQDN

 

Step 3. Install MariaDB database

LAMP stack can be run on either MariaDB or MySQL for the database server. This guide shall cover how to set up MariaDB on Rocky Linux 8. We have already covered a different tutorial to Install MariaDB on Rocky Linux 8.4 [Step-by-Step].

Download and install MariaDB server from the Rocky Linux repositories

[root@rockylinux ~]# sudo dnf -y install @mariadb
Rocky Linux 8 - AppStream                                                3.2 kB/s | 4.8 kB     00:01    
Rocky Linux 8 - BaseOS                                                   1.4 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:03 
Rocky Linux 8 - BaseOS                                                   909 kB/s | 5.6 MB     00:06     
Rocky Linux 8 - Extras                                                   882  B/s | 3.5 kB     00:04    
ELRepo.org Community Enterprise Linux Repository - el8                   1.3 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:02    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64                    31 kB/s |  61 kB     00:01    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                            36 kB/s |  53 kB     00:01    

...

Installed:
  mariadb-backup-3:10.3.28-1.module+el8.4.0+427+adf35707.x86_64             mariadb-errmsg-3:10.3.28-1.module+el8.4.0+427+adf35707.x86_64                   
  mariadb-gssapi-server-3:10.3.28-1.module+el8.4.0+427+adf35707.x86_64      mariadb-server-3:10.3.28-1.module+el8.4.0+427+adf35707.x86_64
  mariadb-server-utils-3:10.3.28-1.module+el8.4.0+427+adf35707.x86_64       perl-DBD-MySQL-4.046-3.module+el8.4.0+577+b8fe2d92.x86_64                       
  perl-DBI-1.641-3.module+el8.4.0+509+59a8d9b3.x86_64                       perl-Math-BigInt-1:1.9998.11-7.el8.noarch  
  perl-Math-Complex-1.59-419.el8_4.1.noarch                                 psmisc-23.1-5.el8.x86_64                                                 

Complete!

Start and enable MariaDB service

sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb

 

Step 4. Execute MySQL Hardening Script

Run the hardening script to harden your MariaDB server. You will be prompted for following input:

Enter current password for root (enter for none):
Change the root password? [Y/n] y
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Sample Output:

[root@rockylinux ~]# mysql_secure_installation 

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MariaDB, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

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

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n] y
New password: 
Re-enter new password: 
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!


By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB 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, MariaDB 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...

All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MariaDB
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MariaDB!

Connect to the database instance using the credentials for the root user set in the previous step.

[root@rockylinux ~]# mysql -u root -p
Enter password: 
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 16
Server version: 10.3.28-MariaDB MariaDB Server

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]> 

 

Step 5. Install and Configure PHP

The next step is to install PHP and some of the necessary PHP extensions on Rocky Linux 8

By default, the Rocky Linux Appstream repo has PHP versions from PHP 7.2 to PHP 7.4. You can verify this by  running the command below:

[root@rockylinux ~]# dnf module list php
Last metadata expiration check: 0:28:50 ago on Sun 22 Aug 2021 08:00:27 PM EAT.
Rocky Linux 8 - AppStream
Name                      Stream                   Profiles                                    Summary                       
php                       7.2 [d][e]               common [d], devel, minimal                  PHP scripting language 
php                       7.3                      common [d], devel, minimal                  PHP scripting language 
php                       7.4                      common [d], devel, minimal                  PHP scripting language

Hint: [d]efault, [e]nabled, [x]disabled, [i]nstalled

To install PHP on Rocky Linux, run the command below for select versions

# PHP 7.4
sudo dnf -y module install php:7.4

# PHP 7.3
sudo dnf -y module install php:7.3

# PHP 7.2
sudo dnf -y module install php:7.2

Sample Output:

[root@rockylinux ~]# sudo dnf -y module install php:7.4
Last metadata expiration check: 0:31:02 ago on Sun 22 Aug 2021 08:00:27 PM EAT.
Dependencies resolved.

...

Installed:
  nginx-filesystem-1:1.14.1-9.module+el8.4.0+542+81547229.noarch    oniguruma-6.8.2-2.el8.x86_64
  php-cli-7.4.6-4.module+el8.4.0+415+e936cba3.x86_64                php-common-7.4.6-4.module+el8.4.0+415+e936cba3.x86_64   
  php-fpm-7.4.6-4.module+el8.4.0+415+e936cba3.x86_64                php-json-7.4.6-4.module+el8.4.0+415+e936cba3.x86_64
  php-mbstring-7.4.6-4.module+el8.4.0+415+e936cba3.x86_64           php-xml-7.4.6-4.module+el8.4.0+415+e936cba3.x86_64      

Complete!

Verify the version of PHP installed to your system

[root@rockylinux ~]# php -v
PHP 7.4.6 (cli) (built: May 12 2020 08:09:15) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies

 

Step 6. Install PHP Modules

PHP itself contains several features that can be individually installed on the Linux system. PHP is generally distributed for Linux in a number of packages, allowing you some choice over what is installed on your server.

Default packages often have no database-specific extensions installed, so they would not be able to immediately communicate with a PostgreSQL or MySQL or MariaDB database. You must install the PHP MySQL module to enable your PHP installation to communicate with a MariaDB database

Install PHP modules.

sudo dnf -y install php php-fpm php-mysqlnd php-opcache php-gd php-xml php-mbstring php-zip

Start and enable PHP-FPM for parsing PHP web content

sudo systemctl enable --now php-fpm

Create a test PHP index file to display the version, module and general information about the LAMP stack.

Add the file in /var/www/html.

[root@rockylinux ~]# cat /var/www/html/info.php
<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Accessing this file through a web browser should show a page containing information about PHP.

 

Step 7. Restart Apache Web Server

Next we will restart the apache service to activate the changes:

sudo systemctl restart httpd

You should also enable the httpd service to automatically start the service after reboot:

sudo systemctl enable httpd

 

Step 8. Access LAMP Stack Server

Open the LAMP stack server on the web browser at http://server-ip/info.php

 

This verifies that our LAMP stack installation is complete and every item has been successfully installed.

 

Conclusion

In this tutorial we discussed about the the popular Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP) web programming environment. These components can be combined to produce a complete open source web server, database and web page programming solution. While each of the components is an individual open source project, they are easily incorporated into a single server environment.

That's it for setting up LAMP stack on Rocky Linux 8.4. You can now start building your web applications and websites using this stack. You can also secure your server using SSL if you have a fully qualified domain name, FQDN.

 

Further Reading

LAMP (software bundle) - Wikipedia
What is a LAMP stack?