Step One—Update Apt-Get


Throughout this tutorial we will be using apt-get as an installer for all the server programs. On May 8th, 2012, a serious php vulnerability was discovered, and it is important that we download all of the latest patched software to protect the virtual private server. 

Let's do a thorough update.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -u upgrade

Step Two—Install MySQL


Once everything is fresh and up to date, we can start to install the server software, beginning with MySQL and dependancies.
sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client php5-mysql

During the installation, MySQL will ask you to set a root password. If you miss the chance to set the password while the program is installing, you can easily create it later within the MySQL shell. 

Step Three—Install nginx


Once MySQL is all set up, we can move on to installing nginx on the VPS.
sudo apt-get install nginx

nginx does not start on its own. To get nginx running, type:
sudo service nginx start

You can confirm that nginx has installed an your web server by directing your browser to your IP address. You can run the following command to reveal your VPS's IP address.
ifconfig eth0 | grep inet | awk '{ print $2 }'

Step Four—Install PHP


To install PHP and PHP-FPM, open terminal and type in these commands. We will configure the details of nginx and php details in the next step:
sudo apt-get install php5 php5-fpm

Step Five—Configure php


We need to make one small change in the php configuration.Open up php.ini:
 sudo nano /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini

Find the line, cgi.fix_pathinfo=1, and change the 1 to 0.
cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
If this number is kept as 1, the php interpreter will do its best to process the file that is as near to the requested file as possible. This is a possible security risk. If this number is set to 0, conversely, the interpreter will only process the exact file path—a much safer alternative. Save and Exit. 

Restart php-fpm:
sudo service php5-fpm restart

Step Six—Configure nginx


Open up the default virtual host file.
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

The configuration should include the changes below (the details of the changes are under the config information):
 [...]
server {
        listen   80; ## listen for ipv4; this line is default and implied
        #listen   [::]:80 default ipv6only=on; ## listen for ipv6

        root /usr/share/nginx/www;
        index index.php index.html index.htm;

        # Make site accessible from http://localhost/
        server_name example.com;

        location / {
                # First attempt to serve request as file, then
                # as directory, then fall back to index.html
                try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
                # Uncomment to enable naxsi on this location
                # include /etc/nginx/naxsi.rules
        }

        location /doc/ {
                alias /usr/share/doc/;
                autoindex on;
                allow 127.0.0.1;
                deny all;
        }

        # Only for nginx-naxsi : process denied requests
        #location /RequestDenied {
                # For example, return an error code
                #return 418;
        #}

        #error_page 404 /404.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/www;
        #}

        # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
        #
        location ~ \.php$ {
                fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
                # NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini

                # With php5-cgi alone:
                fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
                # With php5-fpm:
        #       fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
                fastcgi_index index.php;
                include fastcgi_params;
        }

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

Here are the details of the changes:

  • Add index.php to the index line.

  • Change the server_name from local host to your domain name or IP address (replace the example.com in the configuration)

  • Uncomment the correct lines in “location ~ \.php$ {“ section

Save and Exit

Step Seven—Create a php Info Page


We can quickly see all of the details of the new php configuration. 

To set this up, first create a new file:
sudo nano /usr/share/nginx/www/info.php

Add in the following line:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Then Save and Exit. 

Restart nginx
sudo service nginx restart

You can see the nginx and php-fpm configuration details by visiting http://youripaddress/info.php

Your LEMP stack is now set up and configured on your virtual private server.






+ Recent posts