1. You already have SSH access to your remote host. For security sake, you might want to setup a public/private SSH key to secure your SSH connection.

2. The remote host is in a fresh state. No additional software have been installed or any other user has been created.

Get Started

1. Open a terminal (if you are using Windows, use Putty) and SSH to your remote host.

2. The first thing to do is to update your remote host so that it is running the latest version of all software.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

3. If you are logging in as the root user, it is best to change the default password for the root user and also create a new user account. It is not a good practice to log in as the root user. Once the new user account is created, you will administer the remote host with this account.

Change the password for the root user.

passwd

Create new user account.

adduser username   #replace "username" with your own your user name.

It will prompt you to enter your user password and info.

Add the new user to the “sudo” group.

adduser username sudo

Once this is done, you will need to exit the current SSH session and re-login with the new user account.

4. Install LAMP Server. There is no Synaptic or Ubuntu Software Center here, so we have to install everything via the terminal. While you can install a whole bunch of files here, an easier way is to use the tasksel package.

sudo apt-get install tasksel
sudo tasksel install lamp-server

During the installation, it will prompt you a few questions.

Once the installation is done, go to your web browser and type in the domain name (or IP address) associated with the remote host. If you see the “It Works” screen, you are on track.

9. Secure MySQL

mysql_secure_installation

It will prompt you a few questions:

• Change the root password? – If you have set a secure password previously, you can safely type ‘n’.
• Remove anonymous users? – Type ‘y’.
• Disallow root login remotely? – Type ‘y’.
• Remove test database and access to it? – Type ‘y’.
• Reload privilege table now? – Type ‘y’.

That’s it. You have successfully setup a web server in the remote host.

Optional Stuff

Here are some optional stuff you can install/do:

1. phpMyAdmin

PhpMyAdmin is a frontend GUI that allows you to configure and setup database easily. Since it is accessible via web interface, many people feel that it is unsecured and could be the loophole for hackers to brute-force into your database.

Here’s how to install:

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

Open a browser and go to http://your-ip-address/phpmyadmin. If you see the phpMyAdmin page, your installation is successfully. If not, you will have to add an extra line to the Apache conf file.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Add the following line to the end of the file.

Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf

Save (Ctrl + O) and exit (Ctrl + X).

Restart Apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

2. Configure Apache

There are tons of things that you can do with Apache. I won’t discuss the detail here. Check out this Apache tutorial for the instruction.

3. Install FTP server

If you need to access your remote host via FTP, you will need to install a FTP server. There are several FTP software that you can use. Here, we will be using vsftp.

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

Don’t forget to add the current user to ftp group.

sudo adduser username ftp

4. Install Webmin

Webmin is a free web-based control panel for administrators to manage their servers without having to go into the command line.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following to the end of the file:

deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib
deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib

Import the GPG key:

wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
sudo apt-key add jcameron-key.asc

Install webmin:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install webmin

Once installed, you can access webmin in your browser at the URL https://your-ip-address:10000/.

LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. It is the most widely used combination for setting up a Web Server. By far, the easiest way to install LAMP server is simply installing the Ubuntu Server Edition itself. However, many of us have installed the Ubuntu Desktop edition, only to find that we need to set up a LAMP server later on. In the following tutorial, I am going to show you how to install and configure a LAMP server in your Ubuntu Hardy Heron in less than 10 minutes.

Installing Apache, Php and MySql

In your Ubuntu desktop, go to System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager.

Scroll down the list to search for apache2. Check the box beside it and select ‘Mark for installation‘. This will also install other dependency packages. When prompted, click ‘Mark‘.

Next, scroll down the list and search for php5. Similarly, place a check beside the box and select ‘Mark for installation‘.

Do the same for ‘mysql-server‘ and ‘phpmyadmin‘

Once you are done, click ‘Apply‘ on the top icon bar.

The Synaptic Package Manager will now fetch all the files and install it in your Ubuntu.

When installing MySQL, you will be prompted to enter and reconfirm your password. Make sure that you enter a password that you can remember.

Also, the phpmyadmin will ask you which version of apache to use. Select apache2

Testing your installation

Once you have finished installing the LAMP, you will need to test if it is working.

Open your browser and point the URL to http://localhost

If you see the words ‘It works’, then apache is working fine.

Next, you want to create a php file to test your php setting.

gksu gedit /var/www/testphp.php

paste the following line to the file

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save and close the file.

In your browser, point the URL to http://localhost/testphp.php. You should see all the php information on the browser. If it prompt you to download the file, then your php configuration is not successful. Go to Synaptic Package Manager and reinstall php5

Testing of phpmyadmin

On your browser, go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin. It should loads up the phpmyadmin login page. Log in with the user name root and the password you supplied when installing.

This will bring you to the main screen of phpmyadmin.

Putting it all together

To test if the apache, php5, MySQL and phpmyadmin are working together, we can test it out by installing WordPress.

Download WordPress here.

Extract the wordpress folder to your home folder.

Inside the folder, open up the wp-config-sample.php file. Edit the following information.

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’);    // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘root’);     // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password

Remember to change the ‘yourpasswordhere‘ to the password that you supplied during the MySQL installation.

Save the file as wp-config.php.

Next in your phpmyadmin, create a new database call wordpress.

Open a terminal, copy the wordpress folder to the apache working directory (the working directory is located at /var/www)

sudo cp -R wordpress /var/www/

Once done, on your browser, go to http://localhost/wordpress. The famous 5 minutes installation will show on screen. Follow the instructions. If is your LAMP configuration is good, your wordpress will be up in 1 minute.

That’s it. Enjoy!

[Reference: Lijamex's Blog, Howto Forge]