Install Apache/PHP, MariaDB on RHEL/CentOS 7

This howto guide explains you’ll how to install Apache Server with latest MariaDB and PHP on RHEL, CentOS 7 linux using Remi repository via Yum tool.

Install REMI repository

First enable remi repository:

rpm -ivh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/beta/7/x86_64/epel-release-7-0.2.noarch.rpm

Installing MariaDB (MySQL)

To install MySQL, we do install mariadb like this:

yum -y install mariadb-server mariadb

Now, ceate the system startup links for MySQL and start the MySQL server:

systemctl start mariadb.service
systemctl enable mariadb.service

Set passwords for the MySQL root account:

mysql_secure_installation

[root@localhost ~]# mysql_secure_installation
/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation: line 379: find_mysql_client: command not found

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE! PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user. If you've just installed MariaDB, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): <--ENTER
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n]
New password: <--yourmariadbpassword
Re-enter new password: <--yourmariadbpassword
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
... Success!

By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB without having to have a user account created for
them. This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother. You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] <--ENTER
... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'. This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] <--ENTER
... Success!

By default, MariaDB comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access. This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] <--ENTER
- Dropping test database...
... Success!
- Removing privileges on test database...
... Success!

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] <--ENTER
... Success!

Cleaning up...

All done! If you've completed all of the above steps, your MariaDB
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MariaDB!
[root@localhost ~]#

Install Apache server

CentOS 7.0 ships with apache 2.4. Apache2 is directly available as a CentOS 7.0 package, therefore we can install it like this:

yum -y install httpd

Now, configure your system to start Apache at boot time:

systemctl start httpd.service
systemctl enable httpd.service

In CentOS 7.0 uses Firewall-cmd. Use following command to allow http and https external access.

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http 
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
firewall-cmd --reload

Now direct your browser to http://ip.add.re.ss/, and you should see the Apache2 placeholder page:

Installing PHP

We can install PHP width MySQL support and some common PHP modules that are required by CMS Systems like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal use following commands:

yum -y install php php-mysql php-gd php-ldap php-odbc php-pear php-xml php-xmlrpc php-mbstring php-snmp php-soap curl curl-devel

The document root of the default web site is /var/www/html. We will now create a small PHP file (info.php) in that directory and call it in a browser. The file will display lots of useful details about our PHP installation, such as the installed PHP version.

vi /var/www/html/info.php

Now we call that file in a browser (e.g. http://ip.add.re.ss/info.php):