Install LAMP on CENTOS 9 or RHEL 9

LAMP is a popular open-source software stack used to build and run dynamic websites and web applications.

The acronym LAMP stands for:

• Linux: The operating system that hosts the environment.
• Apache: The web server that processes requests and delivers web pages.
• MySQL: The database system that stores application data.
• PHP: The server-side scripting language that connects everything together.

When a user visits a website, the process flows like this:

1. Apache receives the request from the user’s web browser.
2. Apache passes the request to PHP to process.
3. PHP communicates with the MySQL database to fetch or update data (like user profiles or product listings).
4. PHP processes this data, generates clean HTML code, and hands it back to Apache.
5. Apache sends that HTML page back to the user’s screen.

Key Benefits

• Completely Free: Every component is open-source with no licensing fees.
• Highly Compatible: PHP integrates seamlessly with Apache and MySQL out of the box.
• Massive Community: It powers over 75% of the web, including platforms like WordPress.

In this article, we will show you how to set up a LAMP stack on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 and CentOS Stream 9 systems.

Prerequisites

Before you start, you need to have a freshly installed RHEL or CentOS 9 system with a root user or a user with sudo privileges. You also need to have a basic understanding of Linux commands and concepts.

Step 1: Install the Apache Web Server

Apache is the most widely used web server software in the world, and it’s available in the default CentOS 9 repositories. To install Apache, run the following command as root or with sudo privileges:

# sudo dnf install httpd  

Install Mod SSL (You’re going to want to support secure HTTPS connections)

# sudo dnf install mod_ssl

Once the installation is complete, start the Apache service and enable it to start automatically at boot time:

# sudo systemctl start httpd
# sudo systemctl enable httpd

To verify that the Apache web server is working correctly, open a web browser and access the server’s IP address or hostname. You should see the default Apache web page, which confirms that the web server is up and running.

Step 2: Configure the firewall to allow HTTP and HTTPS connections

# sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
# sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=https
# sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Step 3: Install the MariaDB Database Server

MariaDB is a fork of the MySQL database server, and it’s included in the default CentOS 9 repositories. To install MariaDB, run the following command:

# sudo dnf install mariadb-server

Once the installation is complete, start the MariaDB service and enable it to start automatically at boot time:

# sudo systemctl start mariadb
# sudo systemctl enable mariadb

To secure the MariaDB installation, run the following command, which will prompt you to set a root password for the database:

# mysql_secure_installation 

Add a non-root user to your MySQL installation

Note: Replace username and password with your desired values

# mysql -uroot -p
(enter password when prompted)
mysql> CREATE USER 'username'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON database.* TO 'username'@'host';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Step 4: Install and configure PHP

Now that Apache and MariaDB are installed and running, we can proceed to install PHP. To do this, run the following command:

# sudo dnf install php php-cli php-common php-gd php-mysqlnd php-pdo

After installing PHP, we need to make a few configuration changes to ensure that it works correctly with Apache. Open the `php.ini` configuration file using your preferred text editor:

# sudo vi /etc/php.ini 

In the file, look for the following lines and modify them as follows:

memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 128M
post_max_size = 128M

Save and close the file.

Step 5: Update Apache config to add PHP handler

Update the httpd.conf file to add a file handler for PHP scripts.

# sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Locate the section of the file that contains AddHandler directives by typing the following:

/AddHandler <enter>

Type o to insert a new line

type the following in the file:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php(74|80|81|82) .php

Step 6: Test to verify that Apache and PHP are working

To verify that our LAMP Stack is properly installed and configured, we will create a simple PHP script and run it through Apache.

Create a new file named `info.php` in the Apache web root directory using the following command:

# sudo vi /var/www/html/phpinfo.php 

Paste the following code into the file:

<?php
    phpinfo();
?>

Save and close the file.

Now, open your web browser and navigate to `http://your-server-ip/info.php`. You should see a page displaying the PHP configuration information. If you see this page, then your LAMP Stack is up and running.

If you see a page like the one shown above, then you’ve succeeded!! You have successfully installed and configured a LAMP Stack on your RHEL or CentOS 9 server.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this step-by-step guide has provided the necessary steps to set up a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MariaDB/MySQL, PHP) stack on RHEL or CentOS Stream 9. This is a straightforward process utilizing the default dnf package manager. The deployment consists of installing the web server, database, and PHP components, and configuring the PHP handler and firewall. Whether you’re a seasoned system administrator or a beginner, we hope that this tutorial has provided the nformation you needed to get your LAMP stack up and running in just a few minutes!