project.md

Project 2 - LEMP Stack Deployment

Step 0 - Prerequisites

• Created new AWS instance.

• Installed Git Bash.

  • Ran ssh -i <Your-private-key.pem> ubuntu@<EC2-Public-IP-address> to ssh using Git Bash instead of Putty. See result below:

Step 1 - Installing the Nginx web server

• Ran sudo apt update to update package manager. Also ran sudo apt install nginx to install nginx on linux server.

  • Ran sudo systemctl status nginx to confirm if nginx was fully installed and working. See result below:

• Configured NSG to allow inbound connections on port 80. See screenshot below:

• Ran a curl curl http://127.0.0.1:80 to confirm if the web server could be accessed. See result below:

• Tried accessing the web server from a brower using the public IP. The result was a welcome to nginx screen as seen below:

Step 2 - Installing MySQL

• Ran sudo apt install mysql-server to install MySQL server on linux server. Installation was successful.

  • Ran the sudo mysql_secure_installation to perform the secure installation of MySQL and remove some insure default settings. Opted for a password of MEDIUM strength.

  • Ran sudo mysql to check if MySQL was installed properly and if I'm able to log in. Output shows installation was sucessful.

  • Used the exit command to exit MySQL.

Step 3 - Installing PHP

• Ran sudo apt install php-fpm php-mysql to install PHP & PHP fast CGI process manager. Installation successful as seen below:

Step 4 - Configuring Nginx to use PHP processor

• Ran sudo mkdir /var/www/projectLEMP to create a web directory for my domain projectLEMP. Since nginx has one enabled by default, it is recommended we create another.

  • Also ran sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/projectLEMP to assign ownership of the directory to the current system user.

• Ran sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/projectLEMP to create a configuration file in the web directory using the nano editor. Prior to this project, VIM has been the go to editor.

  • Pasted in the following bare-bones configuration using the nano editor.

  #/etc/nginx/sites-available/projectLEMP
  
  server {
  listen 80;
  server_name projectLEMP www.projectLEMP;
  root /var/www/projectLEMP;
  
  index index.html index.htm index.php;
  
  location / {
      try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
  }
  
  location ~ \.php$ {
      include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
      fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
   }
  
  location ~ /\.ht {
      deny all;
  }
  
  }
  

  • Saved the configuration using CTRL + X. See config file in screenshot below.

• Ran sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/projectLEMP /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ to activate config by linking the config file from nginx `sites-available dir.

  • Ran sudo nginx -t to check for syntax errors.

• Ran sudo unlink /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default to disable/unlink default nginx host listening on port 80.

  • Reloaded nginx to apply changes by running sudo systemctl reload nginx.

• Created index.html file in /vaw/www/projectLEMP/ dir to test if server block/virtual host is up and running. Used sudo echo 'Hello LEMP from hostname' $(curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-hostname) 'with public IP' $(curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-ipv4) > /var/www/projectLEMP/index.html to create and file and perform config.

  • Checked via public IPV4 on my broswer:

  • Checked via public DNS on my browser:

  • Edit test index.html file with randomly generated code, save config and reload nginx. After this has been done, check the browser using the public IP and port.

Step 5 - Testing PHP with nginx

• In order to validate that nginx can properly hand .php files to the PHP processor, I created a test php file in the document root (projectLAMP) folder using sudo nano /var/www/projectLEMP/info.php

  • Pasted in this simple config for the php file.

  <?php
  phpinfo();
  

  

• After saving the index.php file, I used my browser to see if the page is up and running by running http://`server_domain_or_IP`/index.php. Page is working great! See result below:

• Ran sudo rm /var/www/your_domain/index.php to remove php page after confirmation. This is done as the php page displays sensitive information about the PHP environment and ubuntu server.

Step 6 - Retrieving data from MySQL database with PHP

• Connected to MySQL using the root account by running sudo mysql.

  • Created a new database in MySQL by running mysql> CREATE DATABASE `example_database`;

• Ran CREATE USER 'example_user'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password'; to create a new user and set the default authentication mode as mysql_native_password.

  • Used GRANT ALL ON example_database.* TO 'example_user'@'%'; to assign the created user example_user full rights over the created database example_database, while limiting them from creating or modifying other databases on the server.

  • Exit the SQL shell and ran mysql -u example_user -p to login with the just created account example_user to test the access. Logged in successfully.

• Inside the MySQL shell, run SHOW DATABASES; to show the list of databases.

• Created a test table called todo_list from the MySQL console. Ran CREATE TABLE example_database.todo_list (item_id INT AUTO_INCREMENT, content VARCHAR(255), PRIMARY KEY(item_id));

  • Ran INSERT INTO example_database.todo_list (content) VALUES ("My first important item"); to insert rows of data into the test table. Repeated until there was enough.

  • Ran SELECT * FROM example_database.todo_list; to confirm that data entered was saved to the table. Save was successful. Exited the SQL console after. See below report.

• Ran vi /var/www/projectLEMP/todo_list.php to create a new php file in the web root directory. The todo_list.php script will connect to MySQL and query for content.

• Checked http://<Public_domain_or_IP>/todo_list.php on my browser to confirm if everything is working as expected and it was. See screenshot below:

LEMP Stack successfully deployed