Linux + Apache + MySQL +
PHP/Perl together commonly known as LAMP Server.

Apache Web Server 2.0
MySQL Database Serve 5.0
PHP Scripting Language 5.0
phpMyAdmin – Web based MySQL Administration Tool
Webmin – A free web based hosting control panel

Goal

To setup a LAMP server on a fresh VPS/Dedicated server running Centos 5.0 with
atleast 256mb of RAM. We will also be installing Webmin, a free server control
panel for linux.

Install Apache

Apache is a the most popular Web HTTP server for a Linux servers.

yum install httpd httpd-devel

We might need httpd-devel libraries, to compile and install other modules from
the source, just to be on the safer side. /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
– Apache configuration file location

/etc/init.d/httpd start

Install MySQL Database Server

MySQL is widely used open source database server on most linux servers and
can very well integrated to PHP and Apache server in Centos/RHEL

yum install mysql mysql-server mysql-devel

If you attempt to type mysql in command prompt, you will be getting this nasty
error

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can’t connect to local MySQL server through
socket ‘/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock’

This is because you are not running mysqld daemon before launching
the mysql client. The file /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock will be automatically creating
upon running the first instance of mysql.

To fix:

First start the mysql daemon, then type mysql

> /etc/init.d/mysqld start

> mysql

Changing MySQL Root Password

By default the root password is empty for mysql database. It is a good idea
to change mysql root password to a new one from security point of view.

mysql> USE mysql;

mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('newpassword') WHERE user='root';

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

once done, check by logging in

> mysql -u root -p

Enter Password: <your new password>

To Create New MySQL User

To create a new mysql user ‘guest’ with ‘all previleges’ on database ‘demo’

mysql > create database demo

mysql >GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON demo.* TO 'guest'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY
'guest' WITH GRANT OPTION;

mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('guest') WHERE user='guest';

Thats it! MySQL is ready! Dont forget to remember the root password as we might
be using it with phpmyadmin

Install PHP5 Scripting Language

Installing PHP5 with necessary modules is so easy and can be configured for
both apache and mysql environment.

yum install php php-mysql php-common php-gd php-mbstring php-mcrypt php-devel
php-xml

Dont forget to install php-gd (gd library) is very important
if we plan to run captcha scripts in our server and so as other which are dependent
on mysql and other functions.

Restart the apache to load php.

/etc/init.d/httpd restart

To test PHP Working or not:

Create a file named /var/www/html/test.php with the following
phpinfo() function inside php quotes.

// test.php

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

Then point your browser to http://ip.address/test.php

Thats it! you should see a php configuration file displaying all kind of paths
and installed modules.

Closely observe the installed configuration in your server..

* PHP Paths (php.ini path)

* Apache paths and Loaded Modules (mod_security, mod_evasive if installed_

* PHP GD Library

* MySQL paths and other information

Install phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is a free web based MySQL database Administration Tool. Without
phpMyAdmin it is almost impossible to mysql db operations in the command line.
phpMyAdmin has become so convenient and it is absolutely sought by most webmasters
to be present along with mysql server.

yum install phpmyadmin

Point your browser to: http://ip.address/phpmyadmin

Common Errors

You might encounter the following errors while configuring phpmyadmin.

Forbidden

You don’t have permission to access /phpmyadmin/ on this server.

To fix:

Edit the /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf and uncomment the
line deny from all

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf

<Directory "/usr/share/phpmyadmin">

Order Deny,Allow

# Deny from all

Allow from 127.0.0.1

</Directory>

Error

The configuration file now needs a secret passphrase (blowfish_secret)

To fix:

nano /usr/share/phpmyadmin/conf.inc.php

look for a line and enter any password. just dont leave it empty!

$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'mydemopass'; /* YOU MUST FILL IN THIS
FOR COOKIE AUTH! */

It worked for me using the above methods!

Install Webmin

Webmin a free server hosting control panel for linux servers. It is a web based hosting administration tool
and can be handy to tweak settings in your server if you are beginner to linux! You can download webmin here.
Since webmin cannot be installed using yum, we can download a RPM package and
install in our server.

wget <webmin rpm path>

rpm - i webmin-1.410-1.noarch.rpm

That should be a pretty easy installation! Remember webmin uses port 10000
and should not be blocked by firewall.

Point your browser to: http://ip.address:10000

You should see a webmin login. But we dont know the login and password yet!
To setup webmin password run the script below…

> /usr/libexec/webmin/changepass.pl /etc/webmin admin <newpasswd>

To uninstall webmin, just run /etc/webmin/uninstall.sh

Final Steps

We want the apache and mysql to be loaded every boot so we switch them on using
chkconfig

> chkconfig httpd on

> chkconfig mysqld on

Install LAMP Server for Centos/RHEL