LAMP Server on Debian 7 (Wheezy)

A LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack is a common web stack used to prepare servers for hosting web content. This guide shows you how to install a LAMP stack on a Debian 7 (Wheezy) Linode.

Before You Begin

1. Ensure that you have followed the Getting Started and Securing Your Server guides, and the Linode’s hostname is set.

   To check your hostname run:

   hostname
   hostname -f
   

   The first command should show your short hostname, and the second should show your fully qualified domain name (FQDN).

2. Update your system:

   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
   

Apache

Install and Configure

1. Install Apache 2.2:

   sudo apt-get install apache2
   

2. Edit the main Apache configuration file to adjust the resource use settings. The settings shown below are a good starting point for a Linode 2GB:

   File: /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

   KeepAlive Off <IfModule mpm_prefork_module> StartServers 4 MinSpareServers 20 MaxSpareServers 40 MaxRequestWorkers 200 MaxConnectionsPerChild 4500 </IfModule>

Configure Name-Based Virtual Hosts

There are different ways to set up virtual hosts; however, the method below is recommended.

1. Within the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory, create a configuration file for your website, example.com.conf, replacing example.com with your own domain information:

   File: /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

   <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com ServerName example.com ServerAlias www.example.com DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public_html/ ErrorLog /var/www/example.com/logs/error.log CustomLog /var/www/example.com/logs/access.log combined </VirtualHost>

   Note

   The ErrorLog and CustomLog entries are suggested for more fine-grained logging, but are not required. If they are defined (as shown above), the logs directories must be created before you restart Apache.

2. Create the above-referenced directories:

   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.com/public_html
   sudo mkdir /var/www/example.com/logs
   

3. Enable the website’s virtual host:

   sudo a2ensite example.com.conf
   

   Note

   If you need to disable your website later, run:

   sudo a2dissite example.com.conf

4. Restart Apache:

   sudo service apache2 restart
   

Assuming that you have configured the DNS for your domain to point to your Linode’s IP address, virtual hosting for your domain should now work.

MySQL

Install and Configure

1. Install MySQL:

   sudo apt-get install mysql-server
   

   Choose a secure password when prompted.

2. Run mysql_secure_installation, a program that helps secure MySQL. You will be presented with the opportunity to change the MySQL root password, remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of localhost, and remove test databases:

   mysql_secure_installation
   

Create a MySQL Database

1. Log into MySQL:

   mysql -u root -p
   

   Enter the root password. The MySQL prompt will appear.

2. Create a database and a user with permissions for it. In this example the database is called webdata, the user webuser and password password:

   create database webdata;
   grant all on webdata.* to 'webuser' identified by 'password';
   

3. Exit MySQL:

   quit
   

With Apache and MySQL installed, you are now ready to move on to installing PHP.

PHP

1. Install PHP, and the PHP Extension and Application Repository:

   sudo apt-get install php5 php-pear
   

   If you need MySQL support also install php5-mysql

   sudo apt-get install php5-mysql
   

2. Once PHP5 is installed, tune the configuration file located in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini to enable more descriptive errors, logging, and better performance. The following modifications provide a good starting point:

   File: /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

   1 2 3

   error_reporting = E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR error_log = /var/log/php/error.log max_input_time = 30

   Note

   Ensure the lines above are uncommented. Commented lines begin with a semicolon (;).

3. Create the log directory for PHP and give the Apache user ownership:

   sudo mkdir /var/log/php
   sudo chown www-data /var/log/php
   

4. Restart Apache:

   sudo service apache2 restart
   

Congratulations! You have now set up and configured a LAMP stack.

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• Debian Linux Home Page
• Apache HTTP Server Documentation
• MySQL Documentation
• PHP Documentation