Installing LAMP on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)

Acronym Refresher

“Instead of only serving static HTML pages, a LAMP server can generate dynamic web pages that run PHP code and load data from a MySQL database.”

LAMP Stands for "Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP." Together, these software technologies can be used to create a fully-functional web server.

Linux is the most popular, secure and open source operating system used in web servers.

Apache HTTP Server is a free and open-source web server that delivers web content through the internet.

MySQL is a relational database engine that allows you to store data and manage it.

PHP is a widely used open source and general purpose server side scripting language used mainly in web development to create dynamic websites and applications.

NOTE: In some instances, the "P" in LAMP may stand for either Perl or Python, which are other scripting languages.

In this tutorial, we’ll be using MariaDB— a backward compatible, drop-in replacement of the MySQL® Database Server, which includes all major open source storage engines, and allows you to manage relational databases for storing and organizing data.

Prerequisites

• Root access to your server or a sudo user.

Step 1: Update The Package Cache

Start by updating the packages in the package manager cache to the latest available versions using the following command:

sudo apt update

Step 2: Install the MariaDB Database Server

After updating our package cache, we will now install the MariaDB database server. We'll use MariaDB instead of MySQL because it includes more features and supports new storage engines, in addition to its high performance.

To install MariaDB, execute the following command:

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

Tap the y key then Enter to continue the installation.

In the preceding command, you install two packages:

• mariadb-server: The MariaDB database server which actually stores data.
• mariadb-client: The MariaDB database client which allows you to interact with and manage the database server via the command line.

Once the installation is finished, verify that the MariaDB database server is running properly by executing the following command to check out the MariaDB service status:

sudo service mariadb status

The output should show that the service is enabled and running:

● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.6.7 database server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2022-08-02 18:43:46 UTC; 52s ago
       Docs: man:mariadbd(8)
             https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/
   Main PID:    2731 (mariadbd)
     Status:      "Taking your SQL requests now..."
      Tasks:      17 (limit: 19072)
   Memory:     57.5M
        CPU:     421ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service
             └─2731 /usr/sbin/mariadbd

Here, you can see that the service is active and running in the line "Active: active (running) ...".

Ensure That MariaDB Starts at Boot

To make sure that the MariaDB database server starts with the system at boot, use the enable subcommand of the systemctl command. To do so, execute the following command:

sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

You should receive the following output:

Synchronizing state of mariadb.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable mariadb

Securing The MariaDB Database Server

MariaDB comes with some unsafe default settings which may expose your database server to dangerous security vulnerabilities. It's recommended that you run a security script that comes with MariaDB to strengthen your database server and minimize the risk of database intrusions or breaches.

To secure your MariaDB database server, execute the following command, where you will be presented with seven prompts:

First, run the script:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

You’ll be asked for your current root password:

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
haven't set the root password yet, you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): 

Tap Enter.

Next, you'll be asked whether you want to use the unix_socket authentication method:

OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password or using the unix_socket ensures that nobody
can log into the MariaDB root user without the proper authorisation.

Switch to unix_socket authentication [Y/n] 

Tap Y to enable unix_socket authentication for