How To Install Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

LAMP (Short form of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP ) Stack is the most popular environment in PHP website development and web hosting. Where Linux is an operating system, Apache is the popular web server developed by Apache Foundation, MySQL is relational database management system used for storing data and PHP is the widely used programming language.

This article will help you to Install Apache 2.4, MySQL 5.7 and PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Systems.

Step 1 – Install PHP

PHP 7 is the default available packages in Ubuntu 16.04 repositories. Simply use the following commands to update apt cache and install PHP packages on your system.

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y php7.2

You may also need to install some additional PHP modules for supporting various tasks

sudo apt install php7.2-curl php7.2-gd php7.2-json php7.2-mbstring php7.2-mcrypt

Step 2 – Install Apache2

After installing PHP on your system, let’s start the installation of Apache2 in your system. Your also required to install libapache2-mod-php module to work PHP with Apache2.

sudo apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-php7.2

Step 3 – Install MySQL

Finally, install mysql-server packages for MySQL database. Also, install php-mysql package to use MySQL support using php. Use the following command to install it.

sudo apt install mysql-server php7.2-mysql

The installer will prompt for root password, This password will work for your MySQL root user. After installing MySQL execute the following command for initial settings of MySQL server. You will see that script will prompt for more settings than earlier MySQL versions like password validation policy etc.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

You can also install phpMyAdmin for the administration of MySQL using web interface.

sudo apt install phpmyadmin

Step 4 – Restart Services

After installing all the services on your system. Restart MySQL and Apache service to reload any changes done manually.

sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
sudo systemctl restart mysql.service

Step 5 – Open Access in Firewall

The systems with iptables/ufw enabled, execute the following commands to open port 80 for public access of web server.

Iptables Users:

sudo iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

UFW Users:

sudo ufw allow 80/tcp

Step 6 – Test Setup

After completing all setup. Let’s create a info.php file website document root with following content.

<?php
 phpinfo();
?>

Now access this file in web browser. You will see the screen like below with all details of PHP on server.

Congratulation’s! You have successfully configured web server on your ubuntu System. Read our next article Installing LAMP Stack on RHEL based systems