How To Install LAMP Server on Linux Mint 19

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install the LAMP Server on Linux Mint 19. For those of you who didn’t know, LAMP (a server stack) represents a full-featured stack containing the most popular web server known as Apache, the most popular database server MariaDB and the most popular open-source web programming language known as PHP. All components are free and open-source software, and the combination is suitable for building dynamic web pages. The LAMP stack is one of the most popular server configurations in the world.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation LAMP Server on a Linux Mint 19 (Tricia) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Linux Mint 19 (Tricia)
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install LAMP Server on Linux Mint 19

Step 1. Before running the tutorial below, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:

sudo apt update

Step 2. Installing Apache.

Install the Apache web server and type in the command shown below:

sudo apt install apache2

Once you have completed the installation, run:

sudo systemctl start apache2.service
sudo systemctl enable apache2.service

• Configure Firewall

After installing Apache it is necessary to modify UFW firewall rules to open HTTP and HTTPS ports. Run the following command:

sudo ufw allow 'Apache Full'

To verify changes run the following command:

$ sudo ufw status

Status: active
To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
22/tcp                     ALLOW       Anywhere
Apache Full                ALLOW       Anywhere
22/tcp (v6)                ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)
Apache Full (v6)           ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

• Verify Apache Installation.

Apache2 serves any files for your website from /var/www/html a directory. Open your favorite browser and open the below URL to verify Apache installation:

http://your-ip-address

Step 3. Installing MariaDB.

For this next step, you must install the MariaDB database server by typing in the following command:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 0xF1656F24C74CD1D8

Next, importing key add MariaDB repository:

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64,arm64,ppc64el] http://ftp.utexas.edu/mariadb/repo/10.3/ubuntu bionic main'

Finally, let’s update package information from all configured sources:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mariadb-server

Let’s verify that we’ve correctly installed MariaDB. At your shell, type:

mysql -V

After installation, MariaDB will start automatically. To check the status type the following command:

sudo systemctl status mariadb

• Secure MariaDB from default settings.

By default, MariaDB is not hardened. You can secure MariaDB using the mysql_secure_installation script. you should read and below each step carefully which will set a root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MariaDB:

mysql_secure_installation

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Set root password? [Y/n] y
New password:
Re-enter new password:
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
 - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!

Cleaning up...
Thanks for using MariaDB!

To log into MariaDB, use the following command (note that it’s the same command you would use to log into a MariaDB database):

mysql -u root -p

Also try to create a new database, user, and assign privileges to a database:

## CREATE DATABASE
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE mydb;
 
## CREATE USER ACCOUNT
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'dbusers'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-secret-passwd';
 
## GRANT PERMISSIONS ON DATABASE
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL ON mydb.* TO 'dbusers'@'localhost';
 
##  RELOAD PRIVILEGES
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Then, restart the MariaDB database server and enable it to start on system start-up using:

sudo systemctl restart mariadb
sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Step 4. Installing PHP.

We add an external PPA to install PHP 7.3. However, first, you have to install these required packages:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Next, install PHP 7.3 and some of the most commonly used extensions:

sudo apt install php7.3 php7.3-cli php7.3-common php7.3-fpm php7.3-opcache php7.3-curl php7.3-mbstring php7.3-mysql php7.3-zip php7.3-xml

• Verify Install PHP version.

Once it is completed, you can ensure that the latest stable release of PHP 7.3 is installed on your system by using the command:

php -v

To test PHP, create a test file named info.php with the content below. Save the file, then browse to it to see if PHP is working:

nano /var/www/html/info.php

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Congratulations! You have successfully installed LAMP Stack. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing LAMP (Apache, MariaDB, and PHP) in Linux Mint 19 Tricia systems. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Apache, MariaDB, and PHP website.