CentOS is a very popular Linux distribution mainly used as hosting server. This guide will show you step by step how to setup LAMP stack on CentOS 6.x version including CentOS 6.4, 6.5, and 6.6.
The guide starts by installing Apache web service, MySQL database, and PHP / suPHP. After completing this guide, the server is ready to host your web hosting services such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and more.
If you have a dedicated or VPS server and don’t want to buy cPanel, you can manually install and configure it as a WordPress, Joomla and Drupal web server. I use CentOS 6.4 running on a DigitalOcean VPS cloud servers. This should be applicable for any version of Centos such as Centos 5.x.
Install Apache
As root / superuser, update the system and install the web server (Apache)
yum -y update yum -y groupinstall "Web Server" chkconfig httpd on chown apache.apache /var/www/html
Install MySQL database server
As root / superuser, install the MySQL database server
yum -y groupinstall "MySQL Database server" service mysqld start mysql_secure_installation
Install PHP and suPHP
PHP is used as the programming language in most CMSes such as WordPress, Magento, and Joomla, so we need to install PHP on our server.
suPHP is a tool for executing PHP scripts with the permissions of their owners. With suPHP you are able, for example, to manage php applications in user’s home directories without worry about permissions problems (when creating directories, files or uploads)
Run the following command to install the PHP
yum -y install php php-devel php-mysql apr-devel httpd-devel
We will install suPHP from source file so we need to install ‘Development Tools’ packages.
yum -y groupinstall "Development Tools" wget http://www.suphp.org/download/suphp-0.7.1.tar.gz tar zxv suphp-0.7.1.tar.gz cd suphp-0.7.1 ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --with-apache-user=apache --with-setid-mode=paranoid --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs --with-php=/usr/bin/php-cgi --with-logfile=/var/log/httpd/suphp_log --enable-SUPHP_USE_USERGROUP=yes --with-apr=/usr/bin/apr-1-config make && make install
Still in the current directory, copy the suphp.conf-example file configuration located in the doc folder to /etc/ directory.
cp doc/suphp.conf-example /etc/suphp.conf
Edit the /etc/suphp.conf file to be like below!
[global]
;Path to logfile
logfile=/var/log/httpd/suphp.log
;Loglevel
loglevel=info
;User Apache is running as
webserver_user=apache
;Path all scripts have to be in
docroot=/var/www:${HOME}/public_html
;Path to chroot() to before executing script
;chroot=/mychroot
; Security options
allow_file_group_writeable=false
allow_file_others_writeable=false
allow_directory_group_writeable=false
allow_directory_others_writeable=false
;Check wheter script is within DOCUMENT_ROOT
check_vhost_docroot=true
;Send minor error messages to browser
errors_to_browser=false
;PATH environment variable
env_path=/bin:/usr/bin
;Umask to set, specify in octal notation
umask=0077
; Minimum UID
min_uid=100
; Minimum GID
min_gid=100
[handlers]
;Handler for php-scripts
;x-httpd-php="php:/usr/bin/php"
application/x-httpd-suphp="php:/usr/bin/php-cgi"
;Handler for CGI-scripts
x-suphp-cgi="execute:!self"
Add users / websites
To make it easy, websites in a server are divided by users. Users can upload their data or documents inside their HOME, mostly under public_html directory.
adduser website01 passwd website01 mkdir /home/website01/public_html chown website01.website01 /home/website01 chown website01.apache /home/website01/public_html chmod 711 /home/website01 chmod 750 /home/website01/public_html
You can simply repeat the above commands to add more users / websites
Configure the Apache HTTPD
– Edit the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file
ServerName 11.22.33.44:80 <<<< --- change with your IP address and port
Listen 11.22.33.44:80 <<<< --- change with your IP address and port
NameVirtualHost *:80
#
# NOTE: NameVirtualHost cannot be used without a port specifier
# (e.g. :80) if mod_ssl is being used, due to the nature of the
# SSL protocol.
#
#
# VirtualHost example:
# Almost any Apache directive may go into a VirtualHost container.
# The first VirtualHost section is used for requests without a known
# server name.
#
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@website01.com
DocumentRoot /home/website01/public_html
ServerName website01.com
ServerAlias www.website01.com
ErrorLog logs/website01.com-error_log
CustomLog logs/website01.com-access_log common
<Directory /home/website01/public_html/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
<IfModule mod_suphp.c>
suPHP_UserGroup website01 website01
</IfModule>
</VirtualHost>
– Edit the /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf file to make like below!
LoadModule suphp_module modules/mod_suphp.so
suPHP_Engine on
AddType application/x-httpd-suphp .php5 .php .php3 .php2 .phtml
<Directory />
suPHP_AddHandler application/x-httpd-suphp
</Directory>
DirectoryIndex index.php
– Restart Apache and the server is ready to host WordPress/Joomla/Drupal and other CMSes.
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
– Test suPHP using a simple script file (test.php file) and locate it right under public_html directory.
<?php echo 'whoim = '.exec('/usr/bin/whoami');?>
– Run Firefox/Chrome and access to http://website01.com/test.php, it should echo who you are.