In this guide we are going to install Apache, PHP and set up a virtual host in Centos 8 Linux.
The Apache HTTP Server(Apache), is one of the most popular free and open-source cross-platform web server software, released under the terms of Apache License 2.0. Apache is popular as part of the LAMP setup, being the A in the Acronym. The apache server functionality can be extended with the many available modules.
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It is one of the popular programming languages for the web. Popular tools such as WordPress are coded using php. Big companies like Facebook also uses php heavily.
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# Prerequisites
To follow along this guide, please ensure you have the following:
- An Updated Rocky Linux 8 server
- Root access or User with sudo access who can install packages and edit configurations
- Internet access
# Ensuring that the server is up to date
Before proceeding, lets make sure that we have the latest packages in our system. Run the following command to update the system:
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# Installing PHP in Rocky Linux 8
Now that Apache is set up, we will need to install PHP. For php files to be served, php needs to be set up in the system. In this guide we will install php 7.4.
PHP 7.4 is not yet available in the default repositories. The Remi Repository is the perfect repo to install php7.4. Remi repo is a free and stable YUM repository mainly for the PHP stack. It contains packages for the latest versions of PHP.
To enable Remi Repository in our Centos Server:
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Confirm that the remi repository has been installed and enabled with this command:
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You should see the remi repos as part of the elist.
Now that the repository has been installed, lets search for php. Use this command:
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From the list. we can see that the default one is 7.2. Performing a dnf install php
will install the 7.2
which we do not want. Let’s enable the 7.4 using this command:
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If for some reason its failing, you can reset the existing module with this command:
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Now that the repo has been enabled, lets install php with this command:
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Once successful. confirm the version installed with this command:
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Now that Apache and php have been installed successfully, lets set it up to serve some traffic
# Installing Apache on Rocky Linux 8
Now that we have updated our packages, Lets install Apache. Apache is available in the default repositories as the package httpd
. You can check info about it using the following command:
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Lets install it using dnf:
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# Starting and enabling the service
By default the service is not started. Lets start it with this command:
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To confiirm that its working as expected, use the status command and ensure that it indicates as active
like shown below:
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If you have any firewall enabled, please ensure you enable http
and https
traffic to allow access to apache.
To confirm that php is installed and working fine, please visit the server’s IP address in the browser (http://server_ip). If you don’t know the server IP, get it using this command in your terminal:
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If all is well, you should see Apache Test page
# Configuring virtual hosts
With Apache, it is possible to host multiple sites on the same server where the Apache is running. This can always be achieved using multiple domains each representing a site that the server is hosting.
Apache virtual hosts are similar to Nginx server blocks . Each virtual host will have configuration details for a single host. You can have as many virtual hosts as you want.
In this example, we will use the domain site1.citizix.com for the virtual host but be free to use the domain of your choice. Please note that the DNS for the domain to be used should already be configured to point to the IP address of the server. Confirm that with:
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# Creating directory and sample content
The default page of apache is configured as a default virtual host serving content from /var/www/html
. It’s a best practice to create the directory of your site in the /var/www
directory since its a best practice to serve from there.
Lets create a directory for our site with the following command:
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Lets create a simple index.php
page to serve from our site. You will require vim installed for this to work, if not use this command:
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Edit the file:
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Add content to the file:
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Finally, lets make sure that the apache
user owns the site directory:
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# Creating virtual host
Apache Virtual host files specifies the configuration of each sites and tell the Apache web server how to respond to various domain requests.
The Apache configurations will be stored in the directory /etc/httpd/conf.d/
. Lets create a config for our site:
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Add the following content:
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This will tell Apache the following:
ServerName
andServerAlias
- name of the host to serveDocumentRoot
- where to find the root directly that holds the publicly accessible web documentsDirectoryIndex
- The file that apache will serve when the site is accessedErrorLog
- where to store error logs for this siteCustomLog
- where to store request logs for this particular site
Save and close the file when you are finished
# Testing the Virtual Host
Now that the configuration is in place, we need to test that everything is working as expected. Since we created the index.php
file above, lets access it by going to http://server_url/
. In my case this is http://site1.citizix.com/
. You should see a PHP info page.
# Conclusion
In this guide, we managed to set up Apache to serve traffic on a Rocky Linux 8 server.