PHP Site Hosting on Ubuntu

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YOGESH GOWDA G R
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3 min read

Table of contents

What Is LAMP, and How Does It Work?

The best way to create a local web server is to install LAMP, one of the most popular stacks for building and deploying dynamic web applications. The LAMP stack uses Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP as its foundation.

Below is a brief explanation of how LAMP works:

  1. Requests will be pointed to the Apache web server whenever a user visits your website.

  2. The web server will look for the requested web page file and pass the information to PHP. PHP interprets and pulls the necessary data from the MySQL database to render the web content.

  3. Finally, the Apache web server delivers the web content and displays it on the user’s web browser.

Now Let's see how to achieve that.

Add a new user for the site

Here I am adding the Ubuntu user

sudo adduser ubuntu

switch user and create a folder public_html

su - ubuntu
mkdir public_html

we will use this public_html to store site files

Once created exit to switch back to the root user

exit

Update Packages in Ubuntu

Update Packages in Ubuntu.

Add PHP repository, and install php8. ( Replace version 8 with the needed version)

Add PHP-fpm if needed.

sudo apt update
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt install php8.0
sudo apt install php8.0-cli php8.0-common php8.0-imap php8.0-redis php8.0-xml php8.0-zip php8.0-mbstring
sudo apt install php8.0-fpm

If you need additional packages. You need to install it separately.

sudo apt install php8.0-gd

Install Apache2

Install apache2 webserver

sudo apt install apache2 -y

Go to the Apache

site directory and add the site data symlink

cd /var/www/html

now create a symlink

ln -s /home/ubuntu/public_html /var/www/html/site1

switch user and add data file

su - ubuntu && cd public_html

For now, we are adding phpinfo file

vim phpinfo.php

add the following data

<?php
// Show all information, defaults to INFO_ALL
phpinfo();
// Show just the module information.
// phpinfo(8) yields identical results.
phpinfo(INFO_MODULES);
?>

save it.

switch back to the user's root

exit

Edit the configuration of Apache in sites-available

vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Paste the following

<VirtualHost *:80>
               ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
               ServerName Website-name
               DocumentRoot /var/www/html/site1
               ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
               CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
           #    Redirect / https://your-https-site-name.com/   ## if your site is running as https

<Directory "/var/www/html/site1">
          Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
          AllowOverride all
          Allow from all
          Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Also, add additional headers in production.

save and exit.

enable the site

a2ensite 000-default.conf

for apache to work properly enable modules

sudo a2enmod rewrite 
sudo a2enmod ssl
sudo a2enmod php
sudo a2enmod proxy
sudo a2enmod proxy_http
sudo a2enmod proxy_ajp
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod deflate
sudo a2enmod headers
sudo a2enmod proxy_balancer
sudo a2enmod proxy_connect
sudo a2enmod proxy_html

now restart apache

systemctl restart apache2

go to the browser and access the site

http://<IP-here>/phpinfo.php

You should see the PHP page.

Install Mysql Database

To install MySQL 8.0 ( ubuntu 20 and 22 come with Mysql 8.0 repo)

sudo apt install mysql-server-8.0 -y

Add MySQL user and database and provide permissions.

WordPress Installation

Since WordPress is a PHP site. we will assume WordPress site data.

go to the home folder of the user

su - ubuntu
cd public_html

Download WordPress from the official website

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip

unzip the folder

unzip latest.zip

If this extraction creates another folder change in the Apache config.

cd <wordpress directory>

edit the wp-config.php

vim wp-config.php

edit the database details. save and exit.

open the site in browser.

http://<IP-ADDRESS>
php8apacheLinuxWordPress