LAMP

This is my detailed guide on setting up a LAMP server on BunsenLabs GNU/Linux 9.8 (Helium) x86_64. It should work fine on other Debian distros like *buntu.

I also show you how to setup, enable and disable VirtualHosts in your /home/ directory with proper permissions.

This guide will install the following versions:

Apache/2.4.25 (Debian)

Mariadb Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.1.37-MariaDB,

PHP 7.0.33-0+deb9u3

UFW 0.35

Your requirements may be different than mine. There are plenty of guides and tutorials out there but these versions suit me just fine :)

Apache
MariaDB
PHP
UFW
VirtualHosts
Adminer
Permissions

APACHE

sudo apt-get install apache2 -y
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

MARIADB

sudo apt install mariadb-server -y

Secure MariaDB

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Enter current password for root (enter for none): ENTER

Set root password? N

Remove anonymous users? ENTER

Disallow root login remotely? ENTER

Remove test database and access to it? ENTER

Reload privilege tables now? ENTER

Create new root user with admin privileges.

sudo mariadb

This is where you set up your new user and password, change admin/password below.

GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'admin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password' WITH GRANT OPTION;

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

exit

If you should need to login in the future, this is the command

mariadb -u admin -p

PHP

sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql php-gd -y

Apache will try and serve index.html before index.php so we need to change the order.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/dir.conf

BEFORE:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
        DirectoryIndex index.html index.cgi index.pl index.php index.xhtml index.htm
</IfModule>

AFTER:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
        DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.cgi index.pl index.xhtml index.htm
</IfModule>

Restart apache and check status

sudo systemctl restart apache2
sudo systemctl status apache2

OUTPUT:

apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server
  Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
  Active: active (running) since Thu 2019-04-04 11:22:09 MDT; 8s ago
 Process: 680 ExecStop=/usr/sbin/apachectl stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Process: 689 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/apachectl start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 695 (apache2)
   Tasks: 6 (limit: 4915)
  CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
          ├─695 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
          ├─712 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
          ├─713 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
          ├─714 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
          ├─715 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
          └─716 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

Apr 04 11:22:09 acer systemd[1]: Starting The Apache HTTP Server...
Apr 04 11:22:09 acer systemd[1]: Started The Apache HTTP Server.

Feel free to install any php-modules you need. I installed phpgd as it is needed for my chosen CMS - ProcessWire.

Search for php modules

apt search php- | less

View details of a module

apt show php-gd

Let's test that php is working. Copy/Paste this entire block

sudo tee -a /var/www/html/info.php << END
<?php
  phpinfo();
?>
END

Check it out here localhost/info.php

Let's remove the file

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

UFW

What is UFW?

Uncomplicated Firewall is a program for managing a netfilter firewall designed to be easy to use. It uses a command-line interface consisting of a small number of simple commands, and uses iptables for configuration.

sudo apt install ufw

Open firewall access to post 80/http:

sudo ufw allow http

Open firewall access to port 22/ssh:

sudo ufw allow ssh

Let's enable UFW

sudo ufw enable

OUTPUT:

active and enabled on system startup

Let's check the status of UFW:

sudo ufw status

OUTPUT:

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

VIRTUALHOSTS

I prefer to have my projects served directly from my home directory instead of serving files from /var/www/html/projectX.

Plus is just makes it easy to have all my own personal files in home anyways.

mkdir ~/www

Let's create a file in the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory for each virtual host that we want to set up.

I like to use the TLD of .webdev. You can use local, localhost, test, anything you want.

Let's make project1.webdev

Copy/Paste this entire block (don't forget to replace my username organizedfellow with your own).

sudo tee -a /etc/apache2/sites-available/project1.webdev.conf << END
<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@project1.webdev
	ServerName project1.webdev
	ServerAlias www.project1.webdev
	DocumentRoot /home/organizedfellow/www/project1.webdev/public_html/
	ErrorLog /home/organizedfellow/www/project1.webdev/logs/error.log
	CustomLog /home/organizedfellow/www/project1.webdev/logs/access.log combined
    <Directory "/home/organizedfellow/www/project1.webdev/public_html">
        AllowOverride all
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        Require local
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
END

Let's create the folder structure for our project

mkdir -p ~/www/project1.webdev/public_html/
mkdir -p ~/www/project1.webdev/logs/

As you can see, apache logs will be kept directly within out project. I find this makes troubleshooting and debugging a bit simpler.

sudo tee -a ~/www/project1.webdev/public_html/index.php << END
<?php
  echo "Hello World!";
?>
END

Before editing our hosts file, we back it up

sudo cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts.bak

Now we can edit hosts file

sudo echo "127.0.0.1 www.project1.webdev project1.webdev" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

We have to tell apache where to look for our projects since we will be using our /home/ directory

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

FIND:

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Require all granted
</Directory>

Replace /var/www/ with /home/organizedfellow/www/

Like this (don't forget to replace my username organizedfellow with your own)

<Directory /home/organizedfellow/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Don't save yet, go to last line of apache.conf and add this:

ServerName 127.0.0.1

Now save & exit.

Before we can view our project1.webdev in your browser, we need to enable it.

But first, let's see what is currently available.

ls /etc/apache2/sites-available

OUTPUT:

000-default.conf  default-ssl.conf  project1.webdev.conf

If you run sites-enabled

ls /etc/apache2/sites-enabled

OUTPUT:

000-default.conf

Let's enable our project

sudo a2ensite project1.webdev.conf

And then disable the default 000-default.conf.

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf

Restart apache

sudo systemctl reload apache2

Visit your project in your browser http://project1.webdev

ADMINER

What is Adminer?

Adminer (formerly phpMinAdmin) is a full-featured database management tool written in PHP. Conversely to phpMyAdmin, it consist of a single file ready to deploy to the target server. Adminer is available for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MS SQL, Oracle, Firebird, SimpleDB, Elasticsearch and MongoDB.

Let's install adminer and give it its own VirtualHost.

sudo tee -a /etc/apache2/sites-available/adminer.webdev.conf << END
<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@adminer.webdev
	ServerName adminer.webdev
	ServerAlias www.adminer.webdev
	DocumentRoot /home/organizedfellow/www/adminer.webdev/public_html/
	ErrorLog /home/organizedfellow/www/adminer.webdev/logs/error.log
	CustomLog /home/organizedfellow/www/adminer.webdev/logs/access.log combined
    <Directory "/home/organizedfellow/www/adminer.webdev/public_html">
        AllowOverride all
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        Require local
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
END

Let's create the folder structure for adminer.

mkdir -p ~/www/adminer.webdev/public_html/
mkdir -p ~/www/adminer.webdev/logs/

Now we can edit hosts file

sudo echo "127.0.0.1 www.adminer.webdev adminer.webdev" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

Now if you run cat /etc/hosts you should see that both project1.webdev and adminer.webdev are added at the bottom. Now we get to actually installing adminer. It's super simple as it is just a single page php file. As of today (2019-04-04) the current version is 4.7.1.

cd ~/www/adminer.webdev/public_html

wget https://github.com/vrana/adminer/releases/download/v4.7.1/adminer-4.7.1-mysql-en.php
mv adminer-4.7.1-mysql-en.php index.php

Enable adminer.

sudo a2ensite adminer.webdev.conf

And restart apache.

sudo service apache2 restart

You can now log in to Adminer with the username and password you set up above when installing and securing MariaDB.

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PERMISSIONS

Before we give apache ownership of ~/www we add $USER to the group www-data (don't forget to replace my username organizedfellow with your own).

sudo usermod -a -G www-data organizedfellow

Then give apache ownership

sudo chgrp www-data ~/www

Now gives members of www-data group read, write and directory rights.

sudo chmod g+rwxs ~/www

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ToDo

install an easy to use development SMTP server for localhost testing
- a quick google got me this using postfix https://gist.github.com/raelgc/6031274
install localhost certificate to enable https
- a quick google got me this How to get HTTPS working on your local development environment in 5 minutes and this Certificates for localhost
install nodejs and npm, maybe even composer

This work is free. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
terms of the Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License, Version 2,
as published by Sam Hocevar. See http://www.wtfpl.net/ for more details.

quick edit

jjaimealeman/LAMP

LAMP

Table of Contents

APACHE

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MARIADB

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PHP

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UFW

What is UFW?

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VIRTUALHOSTS

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ADMINER

What is Adminer?

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PERMISSIONS

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ToDo