Installing the LEMP Stack on Ubuntu 26.04

Source: Dev.to

Ubuntu 26.04 ships with PHP 8.5, giving you a modern base to build on. This guide sets up a production‑ready LEMP stack, secures it with a Let’s Encrypt certificate, and verifies the full setup with a PHP page that reads from MySQL. By the end you’ll have a fully operational LEMP server ready to host web applications.

Install Nginx

1. Update the APT package index

   sudo apt update

2. Install Nginx

   sudo apt install nginx -y

3. Enable and start the service

   sudo systemctl enable nginx
   sudo systemctl start nginx

Install MySQL

1. Install the MySQL server package

   sudo apt install mysql-server -y

2. Enable and start the service

   sudo systemctl enable mysql
   sudo systemctl start mysql

3. Run the security script

   sudo mysql_secure_installation

4. Set the root password in the MySQL shell

   sudo mysql

   ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'your_strong_password';
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
   EXIT;

Install PHP and PHP‑FPM

PHP‑FPM handles PHP execution through a FastCGI process pool, offering better isolation and performance than mod_php.

1. Install PHP and required extensions

   sudo apt install php php-fpm php-mysql php-cli -y

   What you just installed

   • php – core PHP interpreter
   • php-fpm – FastCGI Process Manager for Nginx
   • php-mysql – MySQL driver for PHP database connections
   • php-cli – command‑line PHP interpreter

2. Enable and start PHP‑FPM

   sudo systemctl enable php8.5-fpm
   sudo systemctl start php8.5-fpm

3. Verify the installed version

   php --version

Configure Firewall Rules

sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp

Configure a Virtual Host

1. Create the web‑root directory

   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/app.example.com
   sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/app.example.com

2. Create a test HTML page

   echo "
   ## Hello from LEMP on Ubuntu 26.04
   " | sudo tee /var/www/app.example.com/index.html

3. Create the virtual‑host configuration

   sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/app.example.com.conf

   server {
       listen 80;
       server_name app.example.com;
       root /var/www/app.example.com;
       index index.php index.html;
   
       location / {
           try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
       }
   
       location ~ \.php$ {
           include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
           fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.5-fpm.sock;
       }
   
       access_log /var/log/nginx/app.example.com-access.log;
       error_log  /var/log/nginx/app.example.com-error.log;
   }

4. Enable the site, test the configuration, and reload Nginx

   sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/app.example.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
   sudo nginx -t
   sudo systemctl reload nginx

Secure with Let’s Encrypt SSL

1. Install Certbot with the Nginx plugin

   sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y

2. Generate and install the certificate

   sudo certbot --nginx -d app.example.com --agree-tos

   Certbot updates the virtual host to redirect HTTP to HTTPS automatically.

3. Test the auto‑renewal timer

   sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Test the LEMP Stack

1. Create the test database

   mysql -u root -p

   CREATE DATABASE lemp_test;
   CREATE USER 'lemp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'secure_password';
   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON lemp_test.* TO 'lemp_user'@'localhost';
   USE lemp_test;
   CREATE TABLE greetings (
       id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
       message VARCHAR(255)
   );
   INSERT INTO greetings (message) VALUES ('LEMP stack is working!');
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
   EXIT;

2. Create the PHP test page

   sudo nano /var/www/app.example.com/test.php

   connect_error) {
       die('Connection failed: ' . $conn->connect_error);
   }
   $result = $conn->query('SELECT message FROM greetings');
   while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
       echo $row['message'];
   }
   $conn->close();
   ?>

3. Visit the test page

   Open https://app.example.com/test.php in a browser.
   The text “LEMP stack is working!” confirms that Nginx, PHP, and MySQL are all working together.

SQL are communicating correctly.

Remove the test file

sudo rm /var/www/app.example.com/test.php

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Next Steps

The LEMP stack is now running and serving requests over HTTPS. From here you can:

• Deploy WordPress or Laravel on this stack
• Add phpMyAdmin for a browser‑based database management interface
• Enable HTTP/2 in Nginx by adding http2 to the listen directive

For the full guide with additional tips, visit the original article on Vultr Docs.