Before You Begin

  1. Ensure that you have followed the Getting Started and Securing Your Server guides, and the Linode’s hostname is set.To check your hostname run: 
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    hostname
hostname -f
    The first command should show your short hostname, and the second should show your fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
  2. Update your system: 
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    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Install and Configure Apache

  1. Install Apache 2.4: 
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    sudo apt-get install apache2
  2. Edit the main Apache configuration file, apache2.conf, to adjust the KeepAlive setting:
    /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
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    KeepAlive Off
  3. The default multi-processing module (MPM) for Apache is the event module, but by default PHP uses the prefork module. Open the mpm_prefork.conf file located in/etc/apache2/mods-available and edit the configuration. Below is the suggested values for a 1GB Linode:
    /etc/apache2/mods-available/mpm_prefork.conf
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    <IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
        StartServers            2
        MinSpareServers         6
        MaxSpareServers         12
        MaxRequestWorkers       39
        MaxConnectionsPerChild  3000
</IfModule>
  4. Disable the event module and enable prefork: 
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    sudo a2dismod mpm_event
sudo a2enmod mpm_prefork
  5. Restart Apache: 
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    sudo service apache2 restart

Configure Virtual Hosts

There are several different ways to set up virtual hosts; however, below is the recommended method. By default, Apache listens on all IP addresses available to it.

  1. Within the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory, create a configuration file for your website,example.com.conf, replacing example.com with your own domain information:
    /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf
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    <VirtualHost *:80> 
     ServerAdmin This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
     ServerName example.com
     ServerAlias www.example.com
     DocumentRoot /var/www/html/example.com/public_html/
     ErrorLog /var/www/html/example.com/logs/error.log 
     CustomLog /var/www/html/example.com/logs/access.log combined
     <Directory /path/to/public/website/>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
        Require all granted
     </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
    The ErrorLog and CustomLog entries are suggested for more fine-grained logging, but are not required. If they are defined (as shown above), the logs directories must be created before you restart Apache.
  2. Create the above-referenced directories: 
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    sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/example.com/public_html
sudo mkdir /var/www/html/example.com/logs
  3. Link your virtual host file from the sites-available directory to the sites-enabled directory: 
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    sudo a2ensite example.com.conf
    If you later need to disable your website, run: 
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    a2dissite example.com.conf
  4. Reload Apache: 
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    sudo service apache2 reload
    Assuming that you have configured the DNS for your domain to point to your Linode’s IP address, virtual hosting for your domain should now work.

If there are additional websites you wish to add to your Linode repeat the above steps to add them.

Install and Configure MySQL

  1. Install the mysql-server package: 
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    sudo apt-get install mysql-server
    Choose a secure password when prompted.
  2. Run mysql_secure_installation, a program that helps secure MySQL. You will be presented with the opportunity to change the MySQL root password, remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of localhost, and remove test databases: 
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    mysql_secure_installation

Create a MySQL Database

  1. Log into MySQL: 
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    mysql -u root -p
    Enter MySQL’s root password, and you’ll be presented with a MySQL prompt.
  2. Create a database and a user with permissions for it. In this example the databse is calledwebdata, the user webuser and password password: 
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    create database webdata; 
grant all on webdata.* to 'webuser' identified by 'password';
  3. Exit MySQL: 
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    quit

Install and Configure PHP

  1. Install PHP, and the PHP Extension and Application Repository: 
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    sudo apt-get install php5 php-pear
    If you need MySQL support also install php5-mysql 
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    sudo apt-get install php5-mysql
  2. Once PHP5 is installed, tune the configuration file located in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini to enable more descriptive errors, logging, and better performance. The following modifications provide a good starting point:
    /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
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    error_reporting = E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR
error_log = /var/log/php/error.log
max_input_time = 30
    Ensure the lines above are uncommented. Commented lines begin with a semicolon (;).
  3. Create the log directory for PHP and give the Apache user ownership: 
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    sudo mkdir /var/log/php
sudo chown www-data /var/log/php
  4. Reload Apache: 
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    sudo service apache2 reload

Congratulations! You have now set up and configured a LAMP stack.

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