Setting Up a Server Environment with PHP 8.2

In today’s blog, we’ll walk through setting up a server environment for PHP applications, with the latest PHP version (8.2), on an Ubuntu system. We will be using the Apache web server and MySQL for the database. The instructions provided in this blog should also work for other distributions of Linux. Let’s get started!

System Update

First things first, let’s make sure that our system is up to date. You can do so by running the following commands:

sudo su
sudo apt-get -y update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Installing Required Software

We’re going to need some software utilities for our setup. Run the following commands to install them:

sudo apt-get -y install software-properties-common python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:dawidd0811/neofetch
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:ondrej/php
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:keithw/mosh
sudo apt-get -y update

Installing Apache

Next, let’s install the Apache web server with the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install apache2

Installing MySQL

sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server

Installing PHP 8.2

We are ready to install PHP 8.2. Let’s add the repository for PHP and then install PHP with the required extensions:

sudo apt-get -y install php8.2 php8.2-dev php8.2-cli php8.2-common php8.2-curl php8.2-gd php8.2-json php8.2-mbstring php8.2-intl php8.2-mysql php8.2-xml php8.2-zip libphp8.2 libapache2-mod-php8.2 libmcrypt-dev php8.2-redis php8.2-mongodb

Now, it’s time to install some additional tools:

sudo apt-get -y install curl zip unzip rar unrar mosh ncdu neofetch net-tools wget openssh-server ssh libcurl4-openssl-dev libssl-dev

Configuring Apache and PHP

Next, let’s configure our Apache web server. First, we’ll back up the original Apache configuration file:

sudo cp /etc/apache2/apache2.conf /etc/apache2/apache2.conf.bkp

Now let’s edit the Apache configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Paste the following in the file:

<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
    StartServers 4
    MinSpareServers 20
    MaxSpareServers 40
    MaxClients 200
    MaxRequestsPerChild 4500
</IfModule>

<Directory /var/www/html/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Save the changes and close the file. Next, enable Apache modules and restart the server:

sudo a2enmod rewrite headers
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Now, we are ready to set up a VirtualHost for our domain:

sudo a2dissite *default
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/domain.com/{public_html,logs,backups}
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/domain.com.conf

Paste the following configuration in the `domain.com.conf` file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.com
    ServerName  domain.com
    ServerAlias www.domain.com
    DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/domain.com/public_html
    LogLevel warn
    ErrorLog  /var/www/html/domain.com/logs/error.log
    CustomLog /var/www/html/domain.com/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Save and close the file. Enable the site and reload the Apache server:

sudo a2ensite domain.com.conf
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Securing MySQL

Now it’s time to secure our MySQL installation:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

You’ll be asked a series of questions. Respond as follows:

- VALIDATE PASSWORD PLUGIN: `n`
- Change the password for root: `n`
- Remove anonymous users: `y`
- Disallow root login remotely: `y`
- Remove test database and access to it: `y`
- Reload privilege tables now: `y`

Configuring MySQL User and Bind-Address

mysql -u root -p

Inside the MySQL shell, create a new user and grant all privileges:

CREATE USER 'username'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'strongPassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON * . * TO 'username'@'%';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Edit the MySQL configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Add these lines to the file:

[mysqld]
bind-address=0.0.0.0
sql_mode=''

Save and close the file.

Set your time zone (Optional):

timedatectl
sudo timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata

Restart MySQL and set permissions for the HTML directory:

sudo service mysql restart
sudo chmod 775 -R /var/www/html/
sudo chown -R ubuntu:www-data /var/www/html/*

Now, update your `.bashrc` file (Optional):

here you can add alias for different commands for example

echo 'HISTTIMEFORMAT="%y-%m-%d %T "' >> ~/.bashrc
echo "alias www='cd /var/www/html'" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "alias apl='sudo tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log'" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "alias upd='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade && sudo apt-get -y autoremove && sudo apt-get -y autoclean'" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Security Setup

sudo apt-get -y install ufw
sudo ufw allow 22,80,443,3306,8080,8443,9090,9933/tcp
sudo ufw allow 60000:61000/udp
sudo ufw enable

We will also set up Fail2Ban for some extra security:

sudo apt-get -y install fail2

If you are using multiple php version then you can switch between them via below commands

sudo a2dismod php7.2
sudo a2enmod php8.2
sudo service apache2 restart
php -v