Install LEMP Server (Nginx, MariaDB, PHP) On CentOS, RHEL, Scientific Linux 6.5/6.4/6.3

LEMP is a combination of operating system and open-source software stack. The acronym LEMP is derived from first letters of Linux, Nginx HTTP Server, MariaDB database, and PHP/Perl/Python.

In this tutorial, let us see how to setup LEMP server on RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux 6.x. Here x stands for version such as 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5 etc.

My testbox hostname and IP address are server.unixmen.com and 192.168.1.200/24, respectively.

Install Nginx

Nginx (pronounced engine-x) is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server and reverse proxy, as well as an IMAP/POP3 proxy server written by Igor Sysoev. According to netcraft web server survey 14.08% web sites are served by Nginx.

Nginx will not be found in the official CentOS repository, so lets install EPEL and REMI repository first. To install EPEL repository refer the following link.

Install EPEL Repository On RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux 6

Now install Nginx with following command:

# yum install nginx -y

Start Nginx and make it to start automatically on every reboot:

# service nginx start 
# chkconfig nginx on

Stop Apache or any other web servers if you have any:

# service httpd stop 
# chkconfig httpd off

Open the Nginx port 80 through your firewall/router if you want to access the web server from other systems:

# vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables 

Add the following lines.

[...]
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
[...]

Restart iptables:

# service iptables restart

Now point your web browser with “http://192.168.1.200″. The test page of nginx will open.

Test Page for the Nginx HTTP Server on EPEL - Mozilla Firefox_001Nginx web server has been installed now.

Configure Nginx

Open the file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf and set the worker_processes (i.e No. of CPU’s in your system). To see the no. of CPU’s, use the command “lscpu”.

# vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf 

In my case it’s “1″. So I set this as ’1′:

worker_processes 1;

Save and close the file. Open and Edit the “/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf” as shown below:

# vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
#
# The default server
#
server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  server.unixmen.com;

    #charset koi8-r;

    #access_log  logs/host.access.log  main;

    location / {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

    error_page  404              /404.html;
    location = /404.html {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    #
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }

    # proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80
    #
    #location ~ \.php$ {
    #    proxy_pass   http://127.0.0.1;
    #}

    # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
    ## Uncomment or Add the following lines
    location ~ \.php$ {
        root           html;
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        fastcgi_params;
    }

    # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
    # concurs with nginx's one
    #
    #location ~ /\.ht {
    #    deny  all;
    #}
}

Save and close the file. Restart Nginx service:

# service nginx restart

Install MariaDB

MariaDB is a drop in replacement for MySQL. It is a robust, scalable and reliable SQL server that comes rich set of enhancements.

First you have to remove existing MySQL packages if any:

# yum remove mysql* mysql-server mysql-devel mysql-libs

Install REMI Repository to resolve MySQL Compatibility issue

You will probably get dependencies errors while installing MariaDB. So let us add REMI Repository to solve dependencies problems:

Thanks to AskMonty Knowledgebase to help me to solve the dependencies issues. To install REMI repository on CentOS/RHEL/Scientific Linux 6, refer the following link.

Install REMI Repository On RHEl/CentOS/Scientific Linux 6

Install compat-mysql55 package now:

# yum --enablerepo=remi-test --disablerepo=remi install compat-mysql55

Create a repository file for MariaDB and add the following lines:

For 32bit systems:

# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/mariadb.repo
# MariaDB 5.5 CentOS repository list - created 2013-06-06 07:42 UTC
# http://mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories/
[mariadb]
name = MariaDB
baseurl = http://yum.mariadb.org/5.5/centos6-x86
gpgkey=https://yum.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck=1

For 64bit systems:

# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/mariadb.repo


#
MariaDB 5.5 CentOS repository list - created 2013-06-06 07:53 UTC
#
http://mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories/ [mariadb] name = MariaDB baseurl = http://yum.mariadb.org/5.5/centos6-amd64 gpgkey=https://yum.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB gpgcheck=1

Save and exit the file and run yum update command:

# yum update

Now start installing MariaDB:

# yum install MariaDB-devel MariaDB-client MariaDB-server -y

Start MariaDB service and let it to start automatically on every reboot:

# service mysql start
# chkconfig mysql on

Set MySQL root password

By default MySQL root password is empty. So to prevent unauthorized access to MySQL, let us set root user password:

# /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation 
/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation: line 379: find_mysql_client: command not found

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): 
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

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

You already have a root password set, so you can safely answer 'n'.

Change the root password? [Y/n] y
New password: 
Re-enter new password: 
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!

By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] 
 ... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] 
 ... Success!

By default, MariaDB comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] 
 - Dropping test database...
ERROR 1008 (HY000) at line 1: Can't drop database 'test'; database doesn't exist
 ... Failed!  Not critical, keep moving...
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] 
 ... Success!

Cleaning up...

All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MariaDB
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MariaDB!

Install PHP

PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely used open-source general purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML.

Install PHP with following command:

# yum install php php-common php-fpm php-mysql -y

Start php-fpm service and let it to start automatically on every reboot:

# service php-fpm start 
# chkconfig php-fpm on

Configure PHP

Open up /etc/php.ini file in any editor. Find the line cgi.fix_pathinfo and change the value from 1 to 0 (zero):

# vi /etc/php.ini
[...]
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.cgi.fix-pathinfo
cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
[...]

Open up the file /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf and change the user and group values from apache to nginx:

# vi /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf 
[...]
; Unix user/group of processes
; Note: The user is mandatory. If the group is not set, the default user's group
;       will be used.
; RPM: apache Choosed to be able to access some dir as httpd
user = nginx
; RPM: Keep a group allowed to write in log dir.
group = nginx
[...]

Save and close the file. Restart php-fpm service:

# service php-fpm restart

Test PHP

Create a sample “testphp.php” file in Apache document root folder and append the lines as shown below:

# vi /usr/share/nginx/html/testphp.php 
<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Save and close the file. Restart Nginx service:

# service nginx restart

Navigate to  http://server-ip-address/testphp.php. It will display all the details about PHP such as version, build date and commands etc.

phpinfo() - Mozilla Firefox_002If you want to install all PHP modules, enter the command yum install php* -y and restart the Nginx service. To verify for the modules, open up your web browser and navigate to http://server-ip-address/testphp.php. You will able to see all PHP modules.

That’s it. Your LEMP server is ready to use.