How to Install LAMP on CentOS 7

LAMP Stack is a group of open source programs that work together to enable a server to host dynamic websites or web applications. LAMP represents Linux (operating system), Apache (web server), MySQL (MariaDB database), PHP (scripting language). In this guide, we will learn how to install LAMP on CentOS 7.

Prerequisites

Update the software packages of your CentOS Server to the latest version. To do that run the following command:

sudo yum -y update

This tutorials requires you to have root access of your server. If you are working on Windows, you will require an SSH client like PuTTY.

How to Install LAMP on CentOS

Now that Linux (CentOS) is already installed and software packages are updated to the latest version, we will be installing Nginx, MySQL and PHP.

Step #1: Install Apache on CentOS 7

Apache web server is the most popular web server in the world. Most importantly, it is a great choice for hosting a website.

We can easily install Apache web server using the yum package manger of CentOS.

sudo yum install httpd

Since we are using a sudo command, the install command will get executed with root privileges and you will be asked to enter the regular user’s password.

Once it installs, you can start the Apache web server on your CentOS VPS by running:

sudo systemctl start httpd.service

Apache web server should be up and running on your server. You can check the status of your Nginx web server by typing:

sudo systemctl status httpd

Now, we would want our Apache to start automatically on server boot. To enable that, run:

sudo systemctl enable httpd.service

Now enter the IP address of your server in the browser and press enter. You should see a page something like this:

If you do not know the IP address of your server, you can use a tool called iproute2.

ip addr show eth0 | grep inet | awk '{ print $2; }' | sed 's/\/.*$//'

Alternatively, you can type:

curl http://icanhazip.com

Step #2: Installing MySQL (MariaDB)

Now that we have installed Apache web server up and running, it’s time to install MySQL (MariaDB).

MariaDB is a community-developed fork of MySQL database. It is a commercially supported and intended to remain free and open-source software under GNU General Public Licence.

To install MariaDB server along with MySQL/MariaDB-PHP, run:

sudo yum install mariadb-server php-mysql

Now enable and start the MariaDB service by typing:

sudo systemctl start mariadb
sudo systemctl enable mariadb

In this step, we need to secure the MariaDB installation by running:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Once you hit enter, a prompt will ask you to enter the current root password, which you do not have since you just installed the MariaDB. So you can leave the password field blank and press enter.

Now the prompt will show you a password confirmation option. You need to type Y and press enter and follow the instructions to set the password.

Now prompt will return a series of security questions. Answer Y for the following prompts:

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]

We also need to enable the MariaDB so that it starts automatically every time a server is rebooted. To do that, run:

sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Step #3: Install PHP

To run our website or web application and display dynamic content, install the PHP FastCGI processing manager.

We are alsogoing to install php-mysql and php-fpm packages by leveraging the CentOS package manager yum:

sudo yum install php php-mysql php-fpm

Ensure that PHP is up and running:

sudo systemctl start php-fpm

Also, enable php-fpm to start the automatically on server reboot:

sudo systemctl enable php-fpm

Step #4: Test PHP Processing

In order to test our LAMP Stack configuration, create an index.php file inside the root directory of your website example.com.

sudo nano /var/www/example.com/index.php

Paste the following one line code:

Save the index.php file by pressing CTRL + X.

Now restart the PHP-FPM and Apache:

sudo systemctl restart php-fpm
sudo systemctl restart httpd.service

Now go to http://example.com/index.php.

Replace example.com with your domain name.

It will open a page containing PHP information which will look something like this:

It also confirms the successful installation of LAMP Stack.

You may also like: How to Install LEMP on CentOS 7: 5 Easy Steps

Conclusion

In this guide, we covered how to install LAMP on CentOS 7. I hope you will find this tutorial useful.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to comment below.