Building a LEMP (Linux+Nginx+MySQL+PHP) environment under CentOS 8.1 (tutorial details)

LEMP is a software stack that comprises a group of free, open source tools used to power high-traffic and dynamic websites. LEMP is an acronym for Linux, Nginx (pronounced Engine X), MariaDB/MySQL, and PHP.

Nginx is an open source, powerful and high-performance web server that can also double as a reverse proxy. MariaDB is a database system used to store user data, while PHP is a server-side scripting language used to develop and support dynamic web pages.

Related:

Building LAMP (Linux+Apache+MySQL+PHP) environment under CentOS 8.1https://www.linuxidc.com/Linux/2020-02/162446.htm

In this article, you will learn how to install a LEMP server on CentOS 8 Linux distribution.

Step 1: Update Packages on CentOS 8

First, update the repository and packages on CentOS 8 Linux by running the following dnf commands.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo dnf update 

Update CentOS 8 Packages

Step 2: Install Nginx Web Server on CentOS 8

After the packages update is complete, install Nginx using the simple command.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo dnf install nginx 

Install Nginx on CentOS 8

The snippet shows that the Nginx installation worked smoothly without any issues.

Install Nginx on CentOS 8

After the installation is complete, configure Nginx to auto-start at system boot and verify if Nginx is running by executing the command.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo systemctl enable nginx

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo systemctl start nginx 

Configure Nginx to start automatically at system boot

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo systemctl status nginx 

Verify Nginx Service Status

To check the installed Nginx version, run the command.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$nginx -v

nginx version: nginx/1.14.1

Check Nginx Version

If you are curious about Nginx and want to dig more about it, execute the following rpm command.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$rpm -qi nginx 

View Nginx Details

To confirm that the Nginx server is running using a browser, just type the system’s IP address or website address in the URL bar and press Enter.

You should be able to see the “Welcome to nginx on Red Hat Enterprise Linux!” web page, which indicates that your Nginx web server is up and running.

Check Nginx web page

Step 3: Install MariaDB on CentOS 8

MariaDB is a free and open-source fork of MySQL and offers the latest features that make it a better alternative to MySQL. To install MariaDB, run the command.

Install MariaDB in CentOS 8

To enable MariaDB to automatically start at system boot, run.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$systemctl start mariadb

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$systemctl enable mariadb

Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/mysql.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service.

Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/mysqld.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service.

Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/mariadb.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service.

MariaDB starts automatically at system boot

Once installed, check its status using the following command.

Verify MariaDB Service Status

MariaDB database engine is not secure and anyone can log in without credentials. To harden MariaDB and protect it to minimize the chances of unauthorized access, run the command.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$mysql_secure_installation

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB

SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE! PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current

password for the root user. If you've just installed MariaDB, and

you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,

so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none):

You will be prompted to enter your root password (if you already have one) or to set it up. Answer Y to each subsequent prompt.

After setting the password, answer the remaining questions to remove the anonymous user, delete the test database, and disable remote root logins.

Once all the steps are completed, you can log in to the MariaDB server and check the MariaDB server version information (provide the password you specified while protecting the server).

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$mysql -u root -p

Enter password:

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.

Your MariaDB connection id is 8

Server version: 10.3.17-MariaDB MariaDB Server

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]>

Check MariaDB Version

Step 4: Install PHP 7 on CentOS 8

Finally, we will install the last LEMP stack component, PHP, which is a scripting web programming language commonly used for developing dynamic web pages.

At the time of writing this guide, the latest version is PHP 7.4. We will install it using the Remi repository. Remi repository is a free repository that comes with the latest cutting-edge software versions that are not available on CentOS by default.

Run the following command to install the EPEL repository.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo dnf install https://dl.Fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

Next, install yum utils and enable remi-repository using the following commands.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo dnf install dnf-utils http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm

After successfully installing yum-utils and Remi-packages, search for downloadable PHP modules by running command.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo dnf module list php

The output will include available PHP modules, streams, and installation configuration files as shown below.

Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64 3.3 MB/s | 5.9 MB 00:01

Remi's Modular repository for Enterprise Linux 7.1 kB/s | 535 kB 01:15

Safe Remi's RPM repository for Enterprise Linux 3.7 kB/s | 1.4 MB 06:27

Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:03 ago, performed on Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 07:39:24.

CentOS-8 - AppStream

Name Stream Profiles Summary

php 7.2 [d][e] common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language

php 7.3 common, devel, minimal PHP scripting language

Remi's Modular repository for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64

Name Stream Profiles Summary

php remi-7.2 common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language

php remi-7.3 common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language

php remi-7.4 common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language

Tips: [d] default, [e] enabled, [x] disabled, [i] installed

The output indicates that the currently installed PHP version is PHP 7.2. To install the newer version PHP 7.4, reset the PHP modules.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo dnf module reset php

After resetting PHP modules, enable PHP 7.4 modules by running.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo dnf module enable php:remi-7.4

Finally, install PHP, PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager), and associated PHP modules using the command.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo dnf install php php-opcache php-gd php-curl php-mysqlnd

Installed:

php-7.4.3-1.el8.remi.x86_64

php-gd-7.4.3-1.el8.remi.x86_64

php-mysqlnd-7.4.3-1.el8.remi.x86_64

php-opcache-7.4.3-1.el8.remi.x86_64

nginx-filesystem-1:1.14.1-9.module_el8.0.0+184+e34fea82.noarch

php-fpm-7.4.3-1.el8.remi.x86_64

php-mbstring-7.4.3-1.el8.remi.x86_64

php-sodium-7.4.3-1.el8.remi.x86_64

oniguruma-6.8.2-1.el8.x86_64

libsodium-1.0.18-2.el8.x86_64

php-pdo-7.4.3-1.el8.remi.x86_64

complete!

Verify that the installed version works.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$php -v

PHP 7.4.3 (cli) (built: Feb 18 2020 11:53:05) ( NTS )

Copyright (c) The PHP Group

Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies

with Zend OPcache v7.4.3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Complete! Now, we have PHP 7.4 installed. It is also important that we start and enable PHP-FPM at boot time.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo systemctl start php-fpm

[sudo] linuxidc's password:

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo systemctl enable php-fpm

Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/php-fpm.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/php-fpm.service.

To check its status, execute the command.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo systemctl status php-fpm

Check PHP-FPM Status

Another thing is that, by default, PHP-FPM is configured to run as the Apache user. But since we are running the Nginx web server, we need to change it to the Nginx user.

So, open the file /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf .

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo nano /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf

Find these two lines.

user = apache

group = apache

Now change both values ​​to Nginx.

user = nginx

group = nginx

Configure PHP-FPM

Save and exit the configuration file.

Then restart Nginx and PHP-FPM for the changes to take effect.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo systemctl restart nginx

[sudo] linuxidc's password:

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$sudo systemctl restart php-fpm

Step 5: Test PHP Information

By default, Nginx's web directory folder is located in the /usr/share/nginx/html/ path. To test PHP-FPM, we will create a phpinfo file.

[linuxidc@localhost ~/www.linuxidc.com]$cd /usr/share/nginx/html/
[linuxidc@localhost /usr/share/nginx/html]$su

password:

[root@localhost /usr/share/nginx/html]$echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" > linuxidc.com.php

Save and exit the file.

Launch your browser and type the IP address or URL of your web server in the URL bar (this article uses https://www.linuxidc.com as an example), as shown in the figure.

If all goes well, you will see information about the version of PHP you are running and display other metrics.

OK, that’s it, you have now successfully installed LEMP server stack on CentOS 8. For security reasons, you may want to delete the info.php file to prevent anyone from obtaining information from your Nginx server.

Summarize

This is the end of this article about setting up a LEMP (Linux+Nginx+MySQL+PHP) environment on CentOS 8.1. For more information about installing a LEMP environment on CentOS 8 Linux, please search for previous articles on 123WORDPRESS.COM or continue browsing the following related articles. I hope you will support 123WORDPRESS.COM in the future!