How to install LEMP stack in Ubuntu

Complete guide on how to install Nginx, Mysql, and PHP (LEMP Stack) in Ubuntu.

What is LEMP Stack?

LEMP Stack is a set of technologies used to serve a web application. It uses tech stacks like Linux, Nginx, MySql, and PHP.

Linux: an open-source Operating System Kernel that manages different hardware resources. So it becomes the base for many operating systems and server os. Here we will use Ubuntu, an OS based on Linux Kernel as a host machine. On the top, we will install Nginx, MySql, and PHP
Nginx: It is a high-performance web server
MySql: MySql is a popular and stable relational database.
PHP: It's a programming language that was primarily designed to make dynamic websites.

We can use this tech stack to host PHP web apps on the cloud.

Installing Linux (Ubuntu Server 22.04/ 24.04 Prefer the LTS Version)

We don't need to install Linux/Ubuntu by ourselves, we can get this with a Cloud/VPS server.

* You can check cloud services like AWS, GCP Cloud, Digital Ocean, or Hostinger and choose the best cloud server. While choosing the OS, go for Ubuntu 22.04 or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS version.

It will take some time and give you a public IPv4 address with the Linux os installed on your server.

Login to the Linux VPS using SSH

Now you can use the terminal in Linux and Mac or Putty in Windows to access your cloud server from your local PC.

ssh username@server_ip

Replace the username and server_ip with your server's username and IP address then connect to the VPS. Then follow the next steps for installing Nginx, MySql, and PHP in the Linux VPS.

Install Nginx in Ubuntu VPS

Use these commands to update and upgrade the server before installing the Nginx web server

Update the system

sudo apt update

Upgrade the system

sudo apt upgrade

Install Nginx

sudo apt install nginx

This will install Nginx in the Ubuntu VPS. Now try to open the URL https://<your_server_ip> it will show the Nginx default page, like this

Configure ufw firewall to allow Nginx Web Server

Here we need to configure the ufw firewall, it works as a security layer for incoming and outgoing connections. Nginx servers at port 80 for http and port 443 for https.

Check ufw status

sudo ufw status

Allow OpenSSH and Nginx

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow "Nginx HTTP"

We need to connect to the VPS using port 22, and Nginx HTTP allows ports 80 and 443. Once we enable the ufw then we can only connect to the allowed port.

Enable ufw Firewall

sudo ufw enable
sudo ufw app list

Nginx commands

These are a few Nginx commands

sudo systemctl start nginx

sudo systemctl stop nginx

sudo systemctl restart nginx

sudo systemctl reload nginx

sudo systemctl status nginx

sudo systemctl enable nginx

sudo systemctl disable nginx

sudo nginx -t # everything is ok

sudo tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log #logs nginx errors

Install MySQL

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) that uses Structured Query Language (SQL) for accessing and managing databases. Follow these commands to install MySQL on the Ubuntu server.

Update the System

sudo apt update

Install MySQL

sudo apt install mysql-server

Start MySQL Server

 sudo systemctl start mysql.service

Access MySQL Console

sudo mysql

Exit from the MySQL Console

exit

Secure the MySQL Database

We have just installed the MySQL database, but need to secure the database root user with a password.

sudo mysql

Set the root user password

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password'; # replace password with a strong password and then run

Access MySQL database with root user and password

Now if you try to access MySQL with the sudo mysql command it will give you an error, so use this command instead.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then enter the password and continue

Create a MySQL user and give access to a specific database

Create a MySQL Database

CREATE DATABASE database_name;

List all databases

SHOW DATABASES;

Now if you want to create a new user for MySQL use this command.

CREATE USER 'newuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

Authorize the user to access the DB

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON database_name.* TO 'newuser'@'localhost';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Install PHP

PHP is a server-side scripting language designed primarily for web development. It stands for "Hypertext Preprocessor,". PHP can be embedded with HTML to serve dynamic webpages, it connects seamlessly with MySQL to make highly scalable web apps. Install PHP by following this commands

sudo apt install php8.1-fpm php-mysql

Configure Nginx to serve PHP files

By default nginx serves HTML files, so we need to configure it to serve PHP files using the virtual host config file.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

this will open the nano editor and the content will be like

##
# You should look at the following URL's in order to grasp a solid understanding
# of Nginx configuration files in order to fully unleash the power of Nginx.
# https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/
# https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/tutorials/config_pitfalls/
# https://wiki.debian.org/Nginx/DirectoryStructure
#
# In most cases, administrators will remove this file from sites-enabled/ and
# leave it as reference inside of sites-available where it will continue to be
# updated by the nginx packaging team.
#
# This file will automatically load configuration files provided by other
# applications, such as Drupal or Wordpress. These applications will be made
# available underneath a path with that package name, such as /drupal8.
#
# Please see /usr/share/doc/nginx-doc/examples/ for more detailed examples.
##

# Default server configuration
#
server {
	listen 80 default_server;
	listen [::]:80 default_server;

	# SSL configuration
	#
	# listen 443 ssl default_server;
	# listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
	#
	# Note: You should disable gzip for SSL traffic.
	# See: https://bugs.debian.org/773332
	#
	# Read up on ssl_ciphers to ensure a secure configuration.
	# See: https://bugs.debian.org/765782
	#
	# Self signed certs generated by the ssl-cert package
	# Don't use them in a production server!
	#
	# include snippets/snakeoil.conf;

	root /var/www/html;

	# Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
	index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

	server_name _;

	location / {
		# First attempt to serve request as file, then
		# as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
		try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
	}

	# pass PHP scripts to FastCGI server
	#
	#location ~ \.php$ {
	#	include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
	#
	#	# With php-fpm (or other unix sockets):
	#	fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
	#	# With php-cgi (or other tcp sockets):
	#	fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
	#}

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


# Virtual Host configuration for example.com
#
# You can move that to a different file under sites-available/ and symlink that
# to sites-enabled/ to enable it.
#
#server {
#	listen 80;
#	listen [::]:80;
#
#	server_name example.com;
#
#	root /var/www/example.com;
#	index index.html;
#
#	location / {
#		try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
#	}
#}

Now uncomment the # pass PHP scripts to FastCGI block like this

# pass PHP scripts to FastCGI server
#
location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
#
#       # With php-fpm (or other unix sockets):
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
#       # With php-cgi (or other tcp sockets):
#       fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
}

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

Now press ctrl + x then y + enter to exit the nano editor.

Then reload the nginx

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Test PHP on a Web Server

To test the LEMP stack installation, create an index.php page inside the /var/www/html (default public folder for Nginx)

sudo nano /var/www/html/index.php

It will open the nano editor, then add these lines

<?php
phpinfo ();
?>

Now press ctrl + x and then y + enter to exit the nano editor and try to open the URL https://<your_server_ip> it will show the PHP info page like this

That's it the LEMP stack is installed ;)