This tutorial shows you how to install LEMP stack in Ubuntu 13.10. LEMP stands for Linux, Nginx (pronounced “engine x”), MySQL and PHP. The nginx project started with a strong focus on high concurrency, high performance and low memory usage. So it’s a good alternative to Apache webserver for building websites on low memory hosts.

Tutorial Objectives:

• Install Nginx, Php5, MySQL (LEMP) in Ubuntu 13.10 Server
• Enjoy!

To get started, first login your Ubuntu Server and follow the steps below:

1. Intall MySQL

MySQL is a database management system which stores and organizes references to the information the webserver needs.

To install it, run command:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

While the installing process, you’ll be asked to type a password for MySQL root user.

2. Install Nginx

Nginx is available in Ubuntu’s repository, run command below to install it:

sudo apt-get install nginx

Or you can install the latest stable version from Nginx PPA:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nginx/stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nginx

Once installed, start Nginx by:

sudo service nginx start

To check out if nginx is working, go to http://serverip:

nginx is working ubuntu 13.10

3. Install PHP5

PHP is a reflective programming language, which makes it possible for all these different parts to work together.

We can make PHP5 work in nginx through PHP-FPM, which is an alternative PHP FastCGI implementation with some additional features useful for sites of any size, especially busier sites.

Run command below to install php5-fpm:

sudo apt-get install php5-fpm

4. Setup Nginx

The nginx configuration is in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf, read this configuration example.

Now, let’s modify the default site example:

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

Here you can define root directory (to put WordPress files there), your site domain, as well as other settings. See the example below:

server {
	listen 80 default_server;
	listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;

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

	# Make site accessible from http://localhost/
	server_name localhost;

	location / {

		try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;

	}

	location /doc/ {
		alias /usr/share/doc/;
		autoindex on;
		allow 127.0.0.1;
		allow ::1;
		deny all;
	}

	#
	error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
	location = /50x.html {
		root /usr/share/nginx/html;
	}

	location ~ \.php$ {

		# With php5-fpm:
                try_files $uri =404;
		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;
	}
}

After that, reload Nginx:

sudo service nginx reload

4. Check out if PHP is working

Create the test file:

sudo vi /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php

Add following lines and save the file:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Go to http://serverip/info.php in client’s web browser and you’ll see:

php is working

5. Get MySQL working with PHP

Install Xcache, a free and open PHP opcode cacher for caching and optimizing PHP intermediate code, as well as other PHP modules:

sudo apt-get install php5-mysql php5-curl php5-gd php5-intl php-pear php5-imagick php5-imap php5-mcrypt php5-memcache php5-ming php5-ps php5-pspell php5-recode php5-snmp php5-sqlite php5-tidy php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl php5-xcache

Then restart php5:

sudo service php5-fpm restart

Now reload http://serverip/info.php page and scroll down to find out if there’s a section about MySQL:

mysql is working with php

Now your LEMP server is up and running, see how to install wordpress on Ubuntu 13.10