Ubuntu 18.04 Install LLMP stack

With the new MariaDB 10+ they have disabled performance_schema, which means your database will consume minimum amount of memory and you can run Lighttpd, PHP and MariaDB on only 256 MB RAM! So here’s how to do it.

We’ll also install phpMyAdmin for easy configuration of our mysql server and set it up securely to the best of our abilities.

Lets start by updating and installing Lighttpd and MariaDB as well as a few others.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install wget nano openssh-server unzip
sudo systemctl enable ssh
reboot

After reboot:

sudo apt install lighttpd mariadb-server
sudo systemctl start lighttpd.service
sudo systemctl enable lighttpd.service

Now install PHP

sudo apt-get install php-cgi php-cli php-mysql php-gd php-imagick php-recode php-tidy php-xmlrpc php-pdo php-sqlite3 php-curl php-xml libterm-readline-gnu-perl php-mbstring

And enable it in Lighttpd:

sudo lighttpd-enable-mod fastcgi
sudo lighttpd-enable-mod fastcgi-php

Now lets edit the PHP ini file:

sudo nano /etc/php/7.*/cgi/php.ini

And append these at the bottom of the file:

short_open_tag = On
display_errors = on
error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_STRICT & ~E_DEPRECATED
error_log = error_log
output_buffering = Off
date.timezone = "Asia/Singapore"
upload_max_filesize = 50M
post_max_size = 50M
memory_limit = 128M

Now check what user Lighttpd is running as, as well as checking that the PHP was added:

sudo nano /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

...
...
server.document-root        = "/var/www/html"
...
...
server.username             = "www-data"
server.groupname            = "www-data"
server.port                 = 80


index-file.names            = ( "index.php", "index.html", "index.lighttpd.html" )
...
static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".php", ".pl", ".fcgi" )
...
...

Restart lighttpd to load new configs and enable PHP

sudo systemctl restart lighttpd.service

Create a PHP test script to test your new configuration:

sudo echo '<?php phpinfo(); ?>' >> /var/www/html/info.php

If everything is working fine until here, lets setup phpMyAdmin and MariaDB.

First lets startup and enable MariaDB

sudo systemctl restart mariadb
sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Now lets get phpMyAdmin, latest version, from their website https://www.phpmyadmin.net/ and extract it.

cd /var/www/html/
sudo wget https://files.phpmyadmin.net/phpMyAdmin/4.9.1/phpMyAdmin-4.9.1-all-languages.zip
sudo unzip phpMyAdmin-*.zip
sudo mv phpMyAdmin-* phpMyAdmin

Now we need to edit the config file:

sudo cp /var/www/html/phpMyAdmin/config.sample.inc.php /var/www/html/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php
sudo nano /var/www/html/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php

And add some text to the blowfish secret:

...
...
/**
 * This is needed for cookie based authentication to encrypt password in
 * cookie. Needs to be 32 chars long.
 */
$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'ADD_SOME_$TRING_HERE'; /* YOU MUST FILL IN THIS FOR COOKIE AUTH! */
...
...

Then save and exit with Ctrl+x then Y then Enter.

Remember to set correct user for the folders and files under html:

sudo chown -hR www-data:www-data /var/www/html/

Now login to your MariaDB as root from console and add a new user, who will hold the same privileges as root. This is because you can no longer access the root account from phpMyAdmin on ubuntu unless your user has sudo privilages (unsafe).

sudo mysql -u root

Ensure performance_schema is disabled:

SHOW ENGINES;

+--------------------+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+------+------------+
| Engine             | Support | Comment                                                                                          | Transactions | XA   | Savepoints |
+--------------------+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+------+------------+
| MRG_MyISAM         | YES     | Collection of identical MyISAM tables                                                            | NO           | NO   | NO         |
| CSV                | YES     | Stores tables as CSV files                                                                       | NO           | NO   | NO         |
| MEMORY             | YES     | Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables                                        | NO           | NO   | NO         |
| MyISAM             | YES     | Non-transactional engine with good performance and small data footprint                          | NO           | NO   | NO         |
| SEQUENCE           | YES     | Generated tables filled with sequential values                                                   | YES          | NO   | YES        |
| Aria               | YES     | Crash-safe tables with MyISAM heritage                                                           | NO           | NO   | NO         |
| PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA | YES     | Performance Schema                                                                               | NO           | NO   | NO         |
| InnoDB             | DEFAULT | Percona-XtraDB, Supports transactions, row-level locking, foreign keys and encryption for tables | YES          | YES  | YES        |
+--------------------+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+------+------------+

First column says the Engine name, second column shows if it is supported, 4th column shows if it is disabled or not.

Ok, now lets create a new user with username “master” and password “secret_password”. Remember to replace with your own username and password here:

CREATE USER 'master'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret_password';

Now give it full privileges and flush privileges:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'master'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Finally restart mariadb for it to take effect

sudo systemctl restart mariadb

At this point, you can try to login with your defined username and password on phpMyAdmin. Everything is mostly done, except that your MariaDB is still unsecure. So lets secure it by running:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

By default, there is no root password, so press Enter.

Better to set a root password, so Y.

Then enter your desired MariaDB root password twice. It can be different from your server root password.

Best to remove anonymous users, so Y.

Disable all remote logins for root, Y.

Remove test database, Y.

Reload privilege table means whatever we did will take effect. If you made any mistakes, cancel it. If you feel everything is ok, Y.

Now restart MariaDB again:

sudo systemctl restart mariadb

And reboot your server for good measures. Once it is up, you are done.

sudo reboot