How to Deploy a LAMP Stack in CentOS 7

A LAMP stack is the standard foundation upon which websites are built. It is made up of four components that grant its name - Linux, Apache, MySQL (in this case, MariaDB), and PHP. Linux is the operating system, Apache is the web server, MySQL is the database, and PHP interprets code to produce dynamic content. In this article, we will walk you through installing and configuring a basic LAMP stack.

Prerequisites

• A Server with CentOS 7 Installed
• How to Secure Your SSH Connection

Topics

• Installing Apache
• Installing MariaDB
• Installing PHP

Installing Apache

Note: We will assume that a non-root user has been configured for the purposes of this guide. If it has not, you can run all commands without sudo privileges. However, we recommend only using the root user when there is no other option. To configure a new sudo user, please check out the Creating a New Sudo User section of our How to Secure Your SSH Connection in CentOS 7 article.

Before we install Apache, we first want to ensure that our operating system is fully up to date. We can do this with the following command:

$ sudo yum update

Now that the OS is up to date, we can proceed to install Apache. Do so by entering the following command:

$ sudo yum install httpd

Note: If you have a firewall enabled, you will need to ensure that ports 80 and 443 are listening.

Finally, we need to start the Apache daemon.

$ sudo systemctl start httpd

Now type the IP address of your server into a browser to confirm that Apache has installed properly. If it has, you will see the following page:

Now that we have Apache installed and working, let's get started installing MariaDB.

Installing MariaDB

Note: CentOS 7's default repository will install MariaDB even if you type the command to install MySQL. MariaDB is a MySQL-based database developed as a response to Oracle's acquisition of MySQL. The two databases function very similarly.

The third portion of our LAMP stack is MariaDB. To install MariaDB, enter the following command:

$ sudo yum install mariadb-server mariadb

Next, start MariaDB.

$ sudo systemctl start mariadb

Now enter the MySQL installation module using the following command:

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

You will be met with the following prompt:

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): 

Since we have just installed MariaDB, we have yet to set a root password so just press the ENTER key to proceed.

Next, you will be prompted to create a new password for your MySQL root user. Choose any password you wish and then confirm the password at the following prompt.

Set root password? [Y/n]

Press ENTER for each of the rest of the prompts. When you are finished you will get the following output:

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

Thanks for using MariaDB!

Now that we have MariaDB installed, let's take a look at installing PHP.

Installing PHP

In this section, we will be installing and configuring PHP. First, we need to install PHP along with its packages for Apache and MySQL using the following command:

$ sudo yum install php php-mysql

Note: If you wish to download other PHP packages, you can append them to the end of this command.

Now we need to restart Apache so that it works with PHP. Do so using the following command:

$ sudo systemctl restart httpd

Finally, we will create a test file to ensure that PHP has been installed and configured correctly. Create a new file called info.php by opening it in your preferred text editor using the following command:

$ sudo vi /var/www/html/info.php

Enter the following text into the file:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Now navigate to the following website, replacing the x's with your server's IP address or domain name: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/info.php

You should see the following page.

If you see the above page, you have correctly deployed PHP and you are done deploying your LAMP stack. Since this page gives information about your server that could be used to exploit your security, delete this file using the following command:

$ sudo rm /var/www/html/info.php

Conclusion

A properly deployed LAMP stack is the backbone of many websites. Having read this guide, you should now know how Apache, MySQL, and PHP are used as well as how to perform a basic installation of a LAMP stack.