Let us prepare a system that has a minimum requirement of Debian/Ubuntu version of linux with atleast 256MB of RAM available. Anything less than this minimum ram will cause lot of problems since we are running a server along especially mysql and webmin requires lot of RAM to run properly. You will need to have a VPS or dedicated server to follow this tutorial.
* Apache 2 - Linux Web server
* MySQL 5 - MySQL Database Server
* PHP4/5 - PHP Scripting Language
* phpMyAdmin - Web-based database admin software.
Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP/Perl together commonly known as LAMP Server.
Apache is one of the most famous web server which runs on most linux based servers. With just few commands you can configure apache to run with PHP 4 or PHP 5.
If you want to install PHP 4, just apt-get
apt-get install apache2 php4 libapache2-mod-php4
To install PHP5, just run the following on linux shell. Note that if you dont specify packages with '4', PHP5 will be automatically installed.
apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5
Apache configuration file is located at: /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and your web folder is /var/www. In CPanel its /home/<user>
Testing PHP Working
To check whether php is installed and running properly, just create a test.php in your /var/www folder with phpinfo() function exactly as shown below.
nano /var/www/test.php
// test.php
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Point your browser to http://ip.address/test.php or http://domain/test.php and this should show all your php configuration and default settings.
You can edit necessary values or setup virtual domains using apache configuration file.
If you want to use CAPTCHA or for dynamic image generation with php scripts for image verification to stop SPAM or automated robots, then it is absolutely necessary to get php gd library installed with php. Here is the command
apt-get install php5-gd
Thats it!! Point your browser to http://domain/test.php and the php configuration settings will show GD library will be enabled for PNG, GIF, JPG etc.
Installing mysql database server is always necessary if you are running a database driven ecommerce site. Remember running mysql server to a fair extend requires atleast 256mb of RAM in your server. So unless you are running database driven sites you dont absolutely need mysql. The following commands will install mysql 5 server and mysql 5 client.
apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client php5-mysql
Note: If you have already installed php4, you should make a slight change like this.
apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client php4-mysql
The configuration file of mysql is located at: /etc/mysql/my.cnf
To change MySQL Root Password
mysql> USE mysql;
mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('new-password') WHERE user='root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
You can add users to mysql database by using a control panel like webmin or phpMyAdmin to easily create or assign database permission to users.
PhpMyAdmin is a nice web based database management and administration software and easy to install and configure under apache. Managing databases with tables couldnt be much simpler by using phpmyadmin.
All you need to do is:
apt-get install phpmyadmin
The phpmyadmin configuration file is located at: /etc/phpmyadmin folder.
To setup under apache all you need to do is include the following line in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
# Insert this line in apache2.conf
Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf
Now restart apache: /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Point your browser to: http://domain/phpmyadmin
Thats it!! MySQL and phpMyAdmin is Ready !!!
Login with your mysql root password and create users to connect to database from your php script.
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