Nginx

How to Install LEMP Stack on Ubuntu 20.04 Server

This tutorial is going to show you how to install LEMP stack (Nginx, MariaDB, and PHP7.4) on Ubuntu 20.04. A software stack is a set of software tools bundled together. LEMP stands for Linux, Nginx (Engine-X), MariaDB/MySQL and PHP, all of which are open source and free to use. It is the most common software stack that powers dynamic websites and web applications. Linux is the operating system; Nginx is the web server; MariaDB/MySQL is the database server and PHP is the server-side scripting language responsible for generating dynamic web pages.

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, you need an Ubuntu 20.04 OS running on your local computer or on a remote server.

If you are looking for a VPS (Virtual Private Server), then you can register an account at DigitalOcean via this special link to get $50 free credit. (For new users only). If you are already a DigitalOcean user, then you can register an account on Vultr via this special link to get $50 free credit (for new users only).

And if you need to set up LEMP stack with a domain name, I recommend buying domain names from NameCheap because the price is low and they give whois privacy protection free for life.

Step 1: Update Software Packages

Before we install the LEMP stack, it’s a good practice to update repository and software packages by running the following commands on your Ubuntu 20.04 OS.

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

Step 2: Install Nginx Web Server

Nginx is a high-performance web server and very popular these days. It also can be used as a reverse proxy and caching server. Enter the following command to install Nginx Web server.

sudo apt install nginx

After it’s installed, we can enable Nginx to auto-start at boot time by running the following command.

sudo systemctl enable nginx

Then start Nginx with this command:

sudo systemctl start nginx

Now check out its status.

sudo systemctl status nginx

Output:

● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server

 Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)

 Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-04-10 14:11:43 UTC; 3s ago

 Docs: man:nginx(8)

 Process: 8533 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

 Process: 8545 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

 Main PID: 8549 (nginx)

 Tasks: 3 (limit: 9451)

 Memory: 3.9M

 CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service

 ├─8549 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;

 ├─8550 nginx: worker process

 └─8551 nginx: worker process

“Enabled” indicates that auto-start at boot time is enabled and we can see that Nginx is running. You can also see how much RAM Nginx is using from the output. If the above command doesn’t immediately quit after running. You need to press “q” to make it quit.

Check Nginx version.

nginx -v

Output:

nginx version: nginx/1.17.9 (Ubuntu)

Now type in the public IP address of your Ubuntu 20.04 server in the browser address bar. You should see the “Welcome to Nginx” Web page, which means Nginx Web server is running properly. If you are installing LEMP on your local Ubuntu 20.04 computer, then type 127.0.0.1 or localhost in the browser address bar.

If the connection is refused or failed to complete, there might be a firewall preventing incoming requests to TCP port 80. If you are using iptables firewall, then you need to run the following command to open TCP port 80.

sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

If you are using UFW firewall, then run this command to open TCP port 80.

sudo ufw allow http

Finally, we need to make www-data (Nginx user) as the owner of web directory. By default, it’s owned by the root user.

sudo chown www-data:www-data /usr/share/nginx/html -R

Step 3: Install MariaDB Database Server

MariaDB is a drop-in replacement for MySQL. It is developed by former members of MySQL team who are concerned that Oracle might turn MySQL into a closed-source product. Enter the following command to install MariaDB on Ubuntu 20.04.

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After it’s installed, MariaDB server should be automatically stared. Use systemctl to check its status.

systemctl status mariadb

Output:

● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.3.22 database server

 Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)

 Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-04-10 14:19:16 UTC; 18s ago

 Docs: man:mysqld(8)

 https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/

 Main PID: 9161 (mysqld)

 Status: "Taking your SQL requests now..."

 Tasks: 31 (limit: 9451)

 Memory: 64.7M

 CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service

 └─9161 /usr/sbin/mysqld

If it’s not running, start it with this command:

sudo systemctl start mariadb

To enable MariaDB to automatically start at boot time, run

sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Now run the post installation security script.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When it asks you to enter MariaDB root password, press Enter key as the root password isn’t set yet. Then enter y to set the root password for MariaDB server.

Next, you can press Enter to answer all remaining questions, which will remove anonymous user, disable remote root login and remove test database. This step is a basic requirement for MariaDB database security. (Notice that Y is capitalized, which means it is the default answer. )

By default, the MaraiDB package on Ubuntu uses unix_socket to authenticate user login, which basically means you can use username and password of the OS to log into MariaDB console. So you can run the following command to login without providing MariaDB root password.

sudo mariadb -u root

To exit, run

exit;

Check MariaDB server version information.

mariadb --version

As you can see, we have installed MariaDB 10.3.22.

mariadb Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.3.22-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2

Step 4: Install PHP7.4

PHP7.4 is included in Ubuntu 20.04 repository and has a minor performance improvement over PHP7.3. Enter the following command to install PHP7.4 and some common extensions.

sudo apt install php7.4 php7.4-fpm php7.4-mysql php-common php7.4-cli php7.4-common php7.4-json php7.4-opcache php7.4-readline php7.4-mbstring php7.4-xml php7.4-gd php7.4-curl

PHP extensions are commonly needed for content management systems (CMS) like WordPress. For example, if your installation lacks php7.4-xml, then some of your WordPress site pages may be blank and you can find an error in Nginx error log like:

PHP message: PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function xml_parser_create()

Installing these PHP extensions ensures that your CMS runs smoothly. Now start php7.4-fpm.

sudo systemctl start php7.4-fpm

Enable auto-start at boot time.

sudo systemctl enable php7.4-fpm

Check status:

systemctl status php7.4-fpm

Sample output:

● php7.4-fpm.service - The PHP 7.4 FastCGI Process Manager

 Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.4-fpm.service; enabled; vendor pr>

 Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-04-10 14:40:26 UTC; 12s ago

 Docs: man:php-fpm7.4(8)

 Process: 21019 ExecStartPost=/usr/lib/php/php-fpm-socket-helper install /ru>

 Main PID: 21012 (php-fpm7.4)

 Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 2, Requests: 0, slow: 0, Traffic: 0req>

 Tasks: 3 (limit: 9451)

 Memory: 9.4M

 CGroup: /system.slice/php7.4-fpm.service

 ├─21012 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.4/fpm/php-fpm.conf)

 ├─21017 php-fpm: pool www

 └─21018 php-fpm: pool www

If the above command doesn’t immediately quit after running. You need to press “q” to make it quit.

Step 5: Create an Nginx Server Block

An Nginx server block is like a virtual host in Apache. We will not use the default server block because it’s inadequate to run PHP code and if we modify it, it becomes a mess. So remove the default symlink in sites-enabled directory by running the following command. (It’s still available as /etc/nginx/sites-available/default.)

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Then use a command-line text editor like Nano to create a brand new server block file under /etc/nginx/conf.d/ directory.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

Paste the following text into the file. The following snippet will make Nginx listen on IPv4 port 80 and IPv6 port 80 with a catch-all server name.

server {

 listen 80;

 listen [::]:80;

 server_name _;

 root /usr/share/nginx/html/;

 index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

 location / {

 try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;

 }

 location ~ \.php$ {

 fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;

 fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;

 include fastcgi_params;

 include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

 }

 # A long browser cache lifetime can speed up repeat visits to your page

 location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|webp|svg|woff|woff2|ttf|css|js|ico|xml)$ {

 access_log off;

 log_not_found off;

 expires 360d;

 }

 # disable access to hidden files

 location ~ /\.ht {

 access_log off;

 log_not_found off;

 deny all;

 }

}

Save and close the file. (To save a file in Nano text editor, press Ctrl+O, then press Enter to confirm. To exit, press Ctrl+X.)

Then test Nginx configurations.

sudo nginx -t

If the test is successful, reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Step 6: Test PHP

To test PHP-FPM with Nginx Web server, we need to create a info.php file in the webroot directory.

sudo nano /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php

Paste the following PHP code into the file.

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save and close the file. Now in the browser address bar, enter server-ip-address/info.php. Replace sever-ip-address with your actual IP. If you follow this tutorial on your local computer, then type 127.0.0.1/info.php or localhost/info.php.

You should see your server’s PHP information. This means PHP scripts can run properly with Nginx web server.

Congrats! You have successfully installed Nginx, MariaDB and PHP7.4 on Ubuntu 20.04. For your server’s security, you should delete info.php file now to prevent hacker seeing it.

sudo rm /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php

Troubleshooting Tip

If you encounter errors, you can check the Nginx error log (/var/log/nginx/error.log) to find out what’s wrong.

Nginx Automatic Restart

If for any reason your Nginx process is killed, you need to run the following command to restart it.

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Instead of manually typing this command, we can make Nginx automatically restart by editing the nginx.service systemd service unit. To override the default systemd service configuration, we create a separate directory.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service.d/

Then create a file under this directory.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service.d/restart.conf

Add the following lines in the file, which will make Nginx automatically restart 5 seconds after a failure is detected. The default value of RetartSec is 100ms, which is too small. Nginx may complain that “start request repeated too quickly” if RestartSec is not big enough.

[Service]

Restart=always

RestartSec=5s

Save and close the file. Then reload systemd for the changes to take effect.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

To check if this would work, kill Nginx with:

sudo pkill nginx

Then check Nginx status. You will find Nginx automatically restarted.

systemctl status nginx

How to Install LEMP Stack on Debian 10 Buster Server

This tutorial is going to show you how to install Nginx, MariaDB and PHP7.3 (LEMP stack) on Debian 10 Buster. A software stack is a set of software tools bundled together. LEMP stands for Linux, Nginx, MariaDB/MySQL and PHP, all of which are open source and free to use. It is a very common software stack that powers dynamic websites and web applications. Linux is the operating system; Nginx is the web server; MariaDB/MySQL is the database server and PHP is the server-side scripting language responsible for generating dynamic web pages.

All of the four components are free and open-source. However, since MySQL is now owned by Oracle and there’s a chance that Oracle turns it to a closed-source product, we will choose MariaDB instead of MySQL.

Prerequisites of Installing LEMP Stack on Debian 10 Buster

To follow this tutorial, you need a Debian 10 OS running on your local computer or on a remote server.

If you are looking for a VPS (Virtual Private Server), then you can register an account at Vultr via this special link to get $50 free credit (for new users only). And if you need to set up LEMP stack with a domain name, I recommend buying domain names from NameCheap because the price is low and they give whois privacy protection free for life.

Please note that you need to have root privilege when installing software on Debian. You can add sudo at the beginning of a command, or use su - command to switch to root user.

Step 1: Update Software Packages

Before we install the LEMP stack, it’s a good idea to update repository and software packages. Run the following command on your Debian 10 OS.

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

Step 2: Install Nginx Web Server on Debian 10

Nginx is a high performance web server and very popular these days. It also can be used as a reverse proxy and caching server. Enter the following command to install Nginx Web server.

sudo apt install nginx

After it’s installed, Nginx should be automatically started. Check its status with systemctl.

systemctl status nginx

Sample output:

● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server

 Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: en

 Active: active (running) since Sat 2019-08-10 06:20:26 UTC; 54s ago

 Docs: man:nginx(8)

 Main PID: 19713 (nginx)

 Tasks: 2 (limit: 1149)

 Memory: 4.6M

 CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service

 ├─19713 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_pr

 └─19714 nginx: worker process

Hint: If the above command doesn’t quit immediately, you can press Q key to gain back control of the terminal window.

If it’s not running, use systemctl to start it.

sudo systemctl start nginx

It’s also a good idea to enable Nginx to automatically start at boot time.

sudo systemctl enable nginx

Check Nginx version:

sudo nginx -v

Output:

nginx version: nginx/1.14.2

Now type in the public IP address of your Debian 10 server in the browser address bar. You should see the default “Welcome to nginx” Web page, which means Nginx Web server is running properly. If you are installing LEMP on your local Debian 10 computer, then you should type 127.0.0.1 or localhost in the browser address bar.

If the connection is refused or failed to complete, there might be a firewall preventing incoming requests to TCP port 80. If you are using iptables firewall, then you need to run the following command to open TCP port 80.

sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

If you are using UFW firewall, then run this command to open TCP port 80.

sudo ufw allow http

Now we need to set www-data (Nginx user) as the owner of document root (also known as web root). By default it’s owned by the root user. (Note that Nginx by default uses /usr/share/nginx/html/ as web root, whereas Apache web server uses /var/www/html/ as we root.)

sudo chown www-data:www-data /usr/share/nginx/html/ -R

Step 3: Install MariaDB Database Server on Debian 10

MariaDB is a drop-in replacement for MySQL. Enter the following command to install it on Debian 10.

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After it’s installed, MariaDB server should be automatically stared. Use systemctl to check its status.

systemctl status mariadb

Output:

● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.3.15 database server

 Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; vendor preset: 

 Active: active (running) since Sat 2019-08-10 06:38:58 UTC; 13s ago

 Docs: man:mysqld(8)

 https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/

 Main PID: 20669 (mysqld)

 Status: "Taking your SQL requests now..."

 Tasks: 31 (limit: 1149)

 Memory: 77.7M

 CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service

 └─20669 /usr/sbin/mysqld

If it’s not running, start it with this command:

sudo systemctl start mariadb

To enable MariaDB to automatically start at boot time, run

sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Now run the post installation security script.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When it asks you to enter MariaDB root password, press Enter key as the root password isn’t set yet. Then enter y to set the root password for MariaDB server.

Next, you can just press Enter to answer all remaining questions. This will remove anonymous user, disable remote root login and remove test database. This step is a basic requirement for MariaDB database security. (Note that the letter Y is capitalized, which means it’s the default answer.)

By default, the MaraiDB package on Debian uses unix_socket to authenticate user login, which basically means you can use username and password of the OS to log into MariaDB console. So you can run the following command to login without providing MariaDB root password.

sudo mariadb -u root

or

sudo mysql -u root

To exit, run

exit;

Check MariaDB server version information.

mariadb --version

Output:

mariadb Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.3.15-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2

Step 4: Install PHP7.3 on Debian 10

At the the time of this writing, PHP7.3 is the latest stable version of PHP and has minor performance improvement over previous versions. Enter the following command to install PHP7.3 and some common PHP extensions from Debian 10 repository.

sudo apt install php7.3 php7.3-fpm php7.3-mysql php-common php7.3-cli php7.3-common php7.3-json php7.3-opcache php7.3-readline

Check PHP version information.

php --version

Output:

PHP 7.3.4-2 (cli) (built: Apr 13 2019 19:05:48) ( NTS )

Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group

Zend Engine v3.3.4, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies

 with Zend OPcache v7.3.4-2, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies

Now start php7.3-fpm.

sudo systemctl start php7.3-fpm

Enable auto-start at boot time.

sudo systemctl enable php7.3-fpm

Check status:

systemctl status php7.3-fpm

Step 5: Create a Nginx Server Block

A Nginx server block is like a virtual host in Apache. We will not use the default server block because it’s inadequate to run PHP code and if we modify it, it becomes a mess. So remove the default symlink in sites-enabled directory by running the following command. (It’s still available as /etc/nginx/sites-available/default.)

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Then create a brand new server block file under /etc/nginx/conf.d/ directory with a command line text editor, such as Nano.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

Paste the following text into the file. The following snippet will make Nginx listen on IPv4 port 80 and IPv6 port 80 with a catch-all server name.

server {

 listen 80;

 listen [::]:80;

 server_name _;

 root /usr/share/nginx/html/;

 index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

 location / {

 try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;

 }

 location ~ \.php$ {

 fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock;

 fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;

 include fastcgi_params;

 include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

 }

 # A long browser cache lifetime can speed up repeat visits to your page

 location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|webp|svg|woff|woff2|ttf|css|js|ico|xml)$ {

 access_log off;

 log_not_found off;

 expires 360d;

 }

 # disable access to hidden files

 location ~ /\.ht {

 access_log off;

 log_not_found off;

 deny all;

 }

}

Save and close the file. (To save a file in Nano text editor, press Ctrl+O, then press Enter to confirm. To exit, press Ctrl+X.) Then test Nginx configurations.

sudo nginx -t

If the test is successful, reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Step 6: Test PHP

To test PHP scripts with Nginx server, we need to create a info.php file in the Web root directory.

sudo nano /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php

Paste the following PHP code into the file.

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save and close the file.

Now in the browser address bar, enter server-ip-address/info.php. Replace sever-ip-address with your actual IP. If you follow this tutorial on your local computer, then type 127.0.0.1/info.php or localhost/info.php.

You should see your server’s PHP information. This means PHP scripts can run properly with Nginx web server. You can find that Zend OPcache is enabled.

Nginx Automatic Restart

If for any reason your Nginx process is killed, you need to run the following command to restart it.

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Instead of manually typing this command, we can make Nginx automatically restart by editing the nginx.service systemd service unit. To override the default systemd service configuration, we create a separate directory.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service.d/

Then create a file under this directory.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service.d/restart.conf

Add the following lines in the file, which will make Nginx automatically restart 5 seconds after a failure is detected.

[Service]

Restart=always

RestartSec=5s

Save and close the file. Then reload systemd.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

To check if this would work, kill Nginx with:

sudo pkill nginx

Then check Nginx status. You will find Nginx automatically restarted.

systemctl status nginx

Install LEMP Stack (Nginx, MariaDB, PHP7.2) on RHEL 8/CentOS 8

This tutorial is going to show you how to install LEMP stack on RHEL 8 and CentOS 8.

What’s LEMP Stack?

A software stack is a set of software tools bundled together. LEMP stands for Linux, Nginx (pronounced engine X), MariaDB/MySQL and PHP, all of which are open source. It is the most common software stack that powers dynamic websites and web applications. Linux is the operating system; Nginx is the web server; MariaDB/MySQL is the database server and PHP is the server-side scripting language responsible for generating dynamic web pages.

Prerequisites

You can download and install RHEL 8 by following the tutorial below.

How to Download and Install RHEL 8 for Free

If you are looking for a VPS (Virtual Private Server), then you can register an account at Vultr via my referral link to get $50 free credit for use over 30 days.

This tutorial uses root account to manage administration tasks. To switch to root, run the following command and enter root password.

su -

Step 1: Install Nginx Web Server on RHEL 8/CentOS 8

Nginx is a high performance web server and very popular these days. It also can be used as a reverse proxy and caching server. Enter this command to install Nginx Web server.

yum install nginx -y

After it’s installed, we can start Nginx with this command:

systemctl start nginx

Enable Nginx to auto start at system boot time by running the following command.

systemctl enable nginx

Now check its status.

systemctl status nginx

Output:

● nginx.service - The nginx HTTP and reverse proxy server

 Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)

 Active: active (running) since Wed 2018-12-05 02:04:00 EST; 7s ago

 Main PID: 5032 (nginx)

 Tasks: 2 (limit: 11512)

 Memory: 8.4M

 CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service

 ├─5032 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx

 └─5034 nginx: worker process

“Enabled” indicates that auto start at boot time is enabled and we can see that Nginx is running. Notice that the above command will not immediately quit after running. You need to press “q” to make it quit.

Check Nginx version.

nginx -v

Output:

nginx version: nginx/1.14.1

If you are installing LEMP on your local RHEL 8/CentOS 8 computer, then type 127.0.0.1 or localhost in the browser address bar. You should see the “Welcome to Nginx” Web page, which means Nginx Web server is running properly.

By default, RHEL 8/CentOS 8 forbids public access to port 80. To allow other computers to access the web page, we need to open port 80 in firewalld, the dynamic firewall manager on RHEL/CentOS. Run the following command to open port 80.

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http

If you want to enable HTTPS on Nginx later, then you also need to open port 443.

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https

The --permanent option will make this firewall rule persistent across system reboots. Next, reload the firewall daemon for the change to take effect.

systemctl reload firewalld

Now the Nginx web page is accessible publicly.

Finally, we need to make user nginx as the owner of web directory. By default it’s owned by the root user.

chown nginx:nginx /usr/share/nginx/html -R

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server on RHEL 8/CentOS 8

MariaDB is a drop-in replacement for MySQL. It is developed by former members of MySQL team who are concerned that Oracle might turn MySQL into a closed-source product. Enter the following command to install MariaDB on RHEL 8/CentOS 8.

yum install mariadb-server mariadb -y

After it’s installed, we need to start it.

systemctl start mariadb

Enable auto start at system boot time.

systemctl enable mariadb

Check status:

systemctl status mariadb

output:

● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.3 database server

 Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; vendor preset: disable>

 Active: active (running) since Wed 2018-12-05 02:40:44 EST; 8s ago

 Docs: man:mysqld(8)

 https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/

 Main PID: 17582 (mysqld)

 Status: "Taking your SQL requests now..."

 Tasks: 30 (limit: 11512)

 Memory: 75.2M

 CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service

 └─17582 /usr/libexec/mysqld --basedir=/usr

“Enabled” indicates that auto start at boot time is enabled and we can see that MariaDB server is running. Now we need to run the security script.

mysql_secure_installation

When it asks you to enter MariaDB root password, press Enter key as the root password isn’t set yet. Then enter y to set the root password for MariaDB server.

Next, you can press Enter to answer all remaining questions, which will remove anonymous user, disable remote root login and remove test database. This step is a basic requirement for MariaDB database security. (Note that the letter Y is capitalized, which means it’s the default answer.)

Now you can run the following command and enter MariaDB root password to log into MariaDB shell.

mysql -u root -p

To exit, run

exit;

Step 3: Install PHP-FPM on RHEL 8/CentOS 8

Install PHP and related modules using the following command:

yum install php php-mysqlnd php-fpm php-opcache php-gd php-xml php-mbstring -y

After it’s installed, we need to start it.

systemctl start php-fpm

Enable auto start at system boot time.

systemctl enable php-fpm

Check status:

systemctl status php-fpm

output:

● php-fpm.service - The PHP FastCGI Process Manager

 Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/php-fpm.service; enabled; vendor preset: disable>

 Active: active (running) since Wed 2018-12-05 03:06:01 EST; 22s ago

 Main PID: 18631 (php-fpm)

 Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 5, Requests: 0, slow: 0, Traffic: 0req/sec"

 Tasks: 6 (limit: 11512)

 Memory: 29.6M

 CGroup: /system.slice/php-fpm.service

 ├─18631 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php-fpm.conf)

 ├─18632 php-fpm: pool www

“Enabled” indicates that auto start at boot time is enabled and we can see that PHP-FPM is running. Now edit the PHP-FPM config file:

nano /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf

By default, PHP-FPM runs as the apache user. Since we are using Nginx web server, we need to change it. Find the following two lines.

user = apache

group = apache

Change them to

user = nginx

group = nginx

In this file you can find the following line.

listen = /run/php-fpm/www.sock

This indicates that PHP-FPM is listening on a Unix socket instead of a TCP/IP socket, which is good. Save and close the file. Reload PHP-FPM for the changes to take effect.

systemctl reload php-fpm

Step 4: Test PHP

By default, the Nginx package on RHEL 8/CentOS 8 includes configurations for PHP-FPM (/etc/nginx/conf.d/php-fpm.conf and /etc/nginx/default.d/php.conf). To test PHP-FPM with Nginx Web server, we need to create a info.php file in the document root directory.

nano /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php

Paste the following PHP code into the file.

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save and close the file. If you installed LEMP stack on a local RHEL 8/CentOS 8 server, type in 127.0.0.1/info.php or localhost/info.php in the browser address bar. You should see your server’s PHP information. This means PHP scripts can run properly with Nginx web server.

If RHEL 8/CentOS is running on a remote server, then enter server-ip-address/info.php in browser address bar. Replace sever-ip-address with your actual IP address.

If the browser fails to display the PHP info but prompt you to download the info.php file, simply restart Nginx and PHP-FPM.

sudo systemctl restart nginx php-fpm

Then you should be able to see the PHP info in the web browser.

Nginx Automatic Restart

If for any reason your Nginx process is killed, you need to run the following command to restart it.

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Instead of manually typing this command, we can make Nginx automatically restart by editing the nginx.service systemd service unit. To override the default systemd service configuration, we create a separate directory.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service.d/

Then create a file under this directory.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service.d/restart.conf

Add the following lines in the file, which will make Nginx automatically restart 5 seconds after a failure is detected.

[Service]

Restart=always

RestartSec=5s

Save and close the file. Then reload systemd.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

To check if this would work, kill Nginx with:

sudo pkill nginx

Then check Nginx status. You will find Nginx automatically restarted.

systemctl status nginx