How to install LEMP stack (nginx, MariaDB/MySQL and PHP) on CentOS

The LEMP stack is an increasingly popular web service stack, powering mission-critical web services in many production environments. As the name implies, the LEMP stack is composed of Linux, nginx, MariaDB/MySQL and PHP. nginx is a high performance and lightweight replacement of slow and hard-to-scale Apache HTTP server used in the traditional LAMP stack. MariaDB is a community-driven fork of MySQL, with more features and better performance. PHP, a server-side language for generating dynamic content, is processed by PHP-FPM, an enhanced implementation of PHP FastCGI.

In this tutorial, I demonstrate how to set up the LEMP stack on CentOS platforms. I target both CentOS 6 and CentOS 7 platforms, and point out differences where necessary.

Step One: Nginx

As the first step, let's install nginx on CentOS, and do basic configuration for nginx, such as enabling auto-start and customizing the firewall.

Install Nginx

Let's install a pre-built stable version of nginx package from its official RPM source.

On CentOS 7:

$ sudo rpm --import http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key

$ sudo rpm -ivh http://nginx.org/packages/centos/7/noarch/RPMS/nginx-release-centos-7-0.el7.ngx.noarch.rpm

$ sudo yum install nginx

On CentOS 6:

$ sudo rpm --import http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key

$ sudo rpm -ivh http://nginx.org/packages/centos/6/noarch/RPMS/nginx-release-centos-6-0.el6.ngx.noarch.rpm

$ sudo yum install nginx

Note that if you do not import the official nginx GPG key before installing nginx RPM, you will get this warning:

warning: /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.KttVHD: Header V4 RSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 7bd9bf62: NOKEY

Start Nginx 

 After installation, nginx does not start automatically. Let's start nginx right now, and configure it to auto-start upon boot. Also, we need to open a TCP/80 port in the firewall so that you can access nginx webserver remotely. All of these are achieved by entering the following commands.

OnCentOS 7:

$ sudo service nginx start

$ sudo chkconfig nginx on

$ sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

$ sudo service iptables save

Test Nginx

The default document root directory of nginx is /usr/share/nginx/html. A default index.html file must be already placed in this directory. Let's check if you can access this test web page by going to http://<nginx-ip-address>/

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How to install LAMP stack (Apache, MariaDB/MySQL and PHP) on CentOS

LAMP stack is a popular server-side software stack which is used to build and run dynamic web sites and web applications on Linux platforms. The LAMP stack is composed of Apache (as an HTTP server), MariaDB or MySQL (as a database backend), and PHP, Perl or Python (as a server-side programming language), and hence the acronym "LAMP." Other variants of the LAMP stack exist, such as LEMP (nginx, MySQL, PHP), LAPP (Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP), LLPR (Lighttpd, PostgreSQL, Ruby on Rails), and so forth.

In this tutorial, I describe how to install and set up the LAMP stack with Apache, MariaDB/MySQL and PHP on CentOS server. This tutorial is applicable to CentOS 6 as well as CentOS 7 platforms.

Step One: Apache HTTP Server

As the first step, let's install Apache HTTP server on CentOS. We will also do basic configuration for Apache server afterwards, such as adding Apache service to auto-start list, and opening an HTTP port in the firewall.

Install Apache HTTP Server

$ sudo yum install httpd

Start Apache HTTP Server and Configure Firewall

On CentOS 7 :

$ sudo systemctl start httpd

$ sudo systemctl enable httpd

$ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp --permanent

$ sudo firewall-cmd --reload

On CentOS 6 :

$ sudo service httpd start

$ sudo chkconfig httpd on

$ sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

$ sudo service iptables save

Test Apache HTTP Server

To test the installation, check if httpd daemon is up and running successfully.

On CentOS 7:

$ sudo systemctl status httpd

On CentOS 6:

$ sudo service httpd status

After confirming the status of httpd, open a web browser, and go to http://<web-server-ip-address> to see if you can load the default Apache web page. The screenshot below shows the default Apache web page on CentOS 6 (192.168.1.8) and CentOS 7 (192.168.1.11).

Note that the default document root directory of httpd is /var/www/html on both CentOS 6 and 7. Let's move on to the next step.

Step Two: MariaDB/MySQL

The next step is to set up a database backend for the LAMP stack, for which we have two choices: MySQL and MariaDB. While CentOS/RHEL 6 ships with MySQL server/client packages, CentOS/RHEL 7 moves away from MySQL, and instead offers MariaDB, a community-developed fork of MySQL, as a default database.

Below is how to install MariaDB/MySQL server, and set it up to start automatically upon boot.

On CentOS 7:

$ sudo yum install mariadb-server

$ sudo systemctl start mariadb

$ sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Install MySQL server/client package, and start MySQL server as follows.

On CentOS 6 :

$ sudo yum install mysql-server

$ sudo service mysqld start

$ sudo chkconfig mysqld on

As MariaDB and MySQL are compatible with each other in terms of APIs and command-line usage, the LAMP stack can be configured and operated pretty much the same way regardless of whether you choose MariaDB or MySQL.

As a security precaution, run the following add-on script which is included in the MariaDB/MySQL server package.

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

This script will reconfigure the database server for server hardening purposes. For example, it will change (empty) root password, remove anonymous user, disallow remote root login, and remove a default test database.

Step Three: PHP

The last step in setting up the LAMP stack is to install PHP, a server-side scripting language which is responsible for creating dynamic web pages for users. At a minimum, the LAMP stack requires the following two packages installed.

$ sudo yum install php php-mysql

The php package adds PHP support to Apache HTTP server, and the php-mysql package allows PHP applications to access MariaDB/MySQL server. Besides those two required packages, there are many other useful PHP modules you can install depending on your requirements. For example:

• php-gd: needed for image processing in PHP applications.
• php-odbc: needed for ODBC database access in PHP applications.
• php-pecl-memcache: needed when setting up Memcached caching daemon.
• php-pgsql: needed for PostgreSQL database access in PHP applications.
• php-snmp: needed for querying SNMP-managed devices in PHP applications.
• php-xml: needed for parsing XML in PHP applications.
• php-soap: needed to support SOAP protocol in PHP applications.
• php-xmlrpc: needed to support XML-RPC protocol in PHP applications.

You can get a full list of available PHP modules by running:

$ tzselect

After you answer a series of questions, the tzselect will print out your timezone string (e.g., "Asia/Jakarta"). Open /etc/php.ini file with a text editor, and add the following line.

date.timezone = "Asia/Jakarta"

Don't forget to restart httpd after installing PHP.

On CentOS 7:

$ sudo systemctl restart httpd

On CentOS 6:

$ sudo service httpd restart

Finally, let's check whether PHP is working properly. For this, use the following command, and check if the output of phpinfo() shows up correctly.

$ php -r "phpinfo();" | more

Once you verify PHP command-line output, let's create a test PHP file as follows, and verify that the PHP file is loaded successfully by Apache HTTP server.

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

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Go to http:///test.php in your web browser. You should see the following output.

Now you have successfully set up the LAMP stack!

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How to install Arch Linux the easy way with Evo/Lution

The one who ventures into an install of Arch Linux and has only experienced installing Linux with Ubuntu or Mint is in for a steep learning curve. The number of people giving up halfway is probably higher than the ones that pull it through. Arch Linux is somewhat cult in the way that you may call yourself a weathered Linux user if you succeed in setting it up and configuring it in a useful way.

Even though there is a helpful wiki to guide newcomers, the requirements are still too high for some who set out to conquer Arch. You need to be at least familiar with commands like fdisk or mkfs in a terminal and have heard of mc, nano or chroot to make it through this endeavour. It reminds me of a Debian install 10 years ago.

For those ambitious souls that still lack some knowledge, there is an installer in the form of an ISO image called Evo/Lution Live ISO to the rescue. Even though it is booted like a distribution of its own, it does nothing but assist with installing a barebone Arch Linux. Evo/Lution is a project that aims to diversify the user base of Arch by providing a simple way of installing Arch as well as a community that provides comprehensive help and documentation to that group of users. In this mix, Evo is the (non-installable) live CD and Lution is the installer itself. The project's founders see a widening gap between Arch developers and users of Arch and its derivative distributions, and want to build a community with equal roles between all participants.

The software part of the project is the CLI installer Lution-AIS which explains every step of what happens during the installation of a pure vanilla Arch. The resulting installation will have all the latest software that Arch has to offer without adding anything from AUR or any other custom packages.

After booting up the ISO image, which weighs in at 422 MB, we are presented with a workspace consisting of a Conky display on the right with shortcuts to the options and a LX-Terminal on the left waiting to run the installer.

After setting off the actual installer by either right-clicking on the desktop or using ALT-i, you are presented with a list of 16 jobs to be run. It makes sense to run them all unless you know better. You can either run them one by one or make a selection like 1 3 6 or 1-4 or do them all at once by entering 1-16. Most steps need to be confirmed with a 'y' for yes, and the next task waits for you to hit Enter. This will allow time to read the installation guide which is hidden behind ALT-g or even walking away from it.

The 16 steps are divided in "Base Install" and "Desktop Install". The first group takes care of localization, partitioning, and installing a bootloader.

The installer leads you through partitioning with gparted, gdisk, and cfdisk as options.

After you have created partitions (e.g., /dev/sda1 for root and /dev/sda2 for swap using gparted as shown in the screenshot), you can choose 1 out of 10 file systems. In the next step, you can choose your kernel (latest or LTS) and base system.

After installing the bootloader of your choice, the first part of the install is done, which takes approximately 12 minutes. This is the point where in plain Arch Linux you reboot into your system for the first time.

With Lution you just move on to the second part which installs Xorg, sound and graphics drivers, and then moves on to desktop environments.

The installer detects if an install is done in VirtualBox, and will automatically install and load the right generic drivers for the VM and sets up systemd accordingly.

In the next step,  you can choose between the desktop environments KDE, Gnome, Cinnamon, LXDE, Enlightenment, Mate or XFCE. Should you not be friends with the big ships, you can also go with a Window manager like Awesome, Fluxbox, i3, IceWM, Openbox or PekWM.

Part two of the installer will take under 10 minutes with Cinnamon as the desktop environment; however, KDE will take longer due to a much larger download.

Lution-AIS worked like a charm on two tries with Cinnamon and Awesome. After the installer was done and prompted me to reboot, it took me to the desired environments.

I have only two points to criticize: when the installer offered me to choose a mirror list and when it created the fstab file. In both cases it opened a second terminal, prompting me with an informational text. It took me a while to figure out I had to close the terminals before the installer would move on. When it prompts you after creating fstab, you need to close the terminal, and answer 'yes' when asked if you want to save the file.

The second of my issues probably has to do with VirtualBox. When starting up, you may see a message that no network has been detected. Clicking on the top icon on the left will open wicd, the network manager that is used here. Clicking on "Disconnect" and then "Connect" and restarting the installer will get it automatically detected.

Evo/Lution seems a worthwhile project, where Lution works fine. Not much can be said on the community part yet.  They started a brand new website, forum, and wiki that need to be filled with content first. So if you like the idea, join their forum and let them know. The ISO image can be downloaded from the website.

if you need support about this post , visit here : Xmodulo

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