Master Operator: Set up productive HTTP environment on CentOS 8 (NGINX+PHP+MySQL)

This article is an updated version of Master Operator: Set up productive HTTP environment on CentOS 7 (NGINX+PHP+MySQL)

1.Installing NGINX

You know how it is. Install the compile tools, then dependencies. Download the source pack, unzip, configure, make and install then add to the system startup.

Tools and dependencies

yum -y install gcc gcc-c++ autoconf automake zlib zlib-devel openssl openssl-devel pcre-devel make

Add user and group

sudo groupadd -r nginx

sudo useradd -s /sbin/nologin -g nginx -r nginx

Download source pack and extract the files

In my days, you are expected to get the latest version here: http://nginx.org/en/download.html

And then download the distribution like this:

wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.13.11.tar.gz

Then you get a .tar.gz zipped file.

Run  tar xzvf nginx-1.13.11.tar.gz && cd nginx-1.13.11

to extract the binary files then enter the folder.

Configure, make and make install

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/nginx --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf --user=nginx --group=nginx --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_v2_module

Remember to make && make install

Add to the startup

Save the configuration below into /lib/systemd/system/nginx.service

[Unit]
Description=The NGINX HTTP and reverse proxy server
After=syslog.target network.target remote-fs.target nss-lookup.target

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/usr/local/nginx/logs/nginx.pid
ExecStartPre=/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -t
ExecStart=/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx
ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID
ExecStop=/bin/kill -s QUIT $MAINPID
PrivateTmp=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Remember to execute systemctl enable nginx to enable the autostart.

2.Installing PHP7

Run the following command to install the dependencies of PHP:

rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org 
rpm -Uvh http://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.0-2.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm 
yum install epel-release -y

Install Tools and dependencies

yum -y install libxml2 libxml2-devel openssl openssl-devel bzip2 bzip2-devel libcurl libcurl-devel libjpeg libjpeg-devel libpng libpng-devel freetype freetype-devel gmp gmp-devel libmcrypt libmcrypt-devel readline readline-devel libxslt libxslt-devel libc-client-devel sqlite-devel.x86_64 libzip-devel

echo '/usr/local/lib64
/usr/local/lib
/usr/lib
/usr/lib64'>>/etc/ld.so.conf
ldconfig -v

cp /usr/local/lib/libzip/include/zipconf.h /usr/local/include/zipconf.

ln -s /usr/lib64/libc-client.so /usr/lib/libc-client.so

Download source pack and unzip

In my days, you are expected to get the latest version here: http://php.net/downloads.php

And then use some command similar to this:

wget http://us2.php.net/distributions/php-7.3.6.tar.gz

Then you get a .tar.gz zipped file.

Run  tar xzvf php-7.3.6.tar.gz && cd php-7.3.6.tar.gz

to extract the binary files then enter the folder.

Choose your PHP version wisely. You may need some libraries and features which requires a specific version of PHP.

Configure, make and make install

go into the folder of your PHP

./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local/php \
--with-config-file-path=/etc \
--enable-fpm \
--with-fpm-user=nginx  \
--with-fpm-group=nginx \
--enable-inline-optimization \
--disable-debug \
--disable-rpath \
--enable-shared  \
--enable-soap \
--with-libxml-dir \
--with-xmlrpc \
--with-openssl \
--with-mhash \
--with-pcre-regex \
--with-sqlite3 \
--with-zlib \
--enable-bcmath \
--with-iconv \
--with-bz2 \
--enable-calendar \
--with-curl \
--with-cdb \
--enable-dom \
--enable-exif \
--enable-fileinfo \
--enable-filter \
--with-pcre-dir \
--enable-ftp \
--with-gd \
--with-openssl-dir \
--with-jpeg-dir \
--with-png-dir \
--with-zlib-dir  \
--with-freetype-dir \
--enable-gd-jis-conv \
--with-gettext \
--with-gmp \
--with-mhash \
--enable-json \
--enable-mbstring \
--enable-mbregex \
--enable-mbregex-backtrack \
--with-onig \
--enable-pdo \
--with-mysqli=mysqlnd \
--with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd \
--with-zlib-dir \
--with-pdo-sqlite \
--with-readline \
--enable-session \
--enable-shmop \
--enable-simplexml \
--enable-sockets  \
--enable-sysvmsg \
--enable-sysvsem \
--enable-sysvshm \
--enable-wddx \
--with-libxml-dir \
--with-xsl \
--enable-zip \
--enable-mysqlnd-compression-support \
--with-pear \
--enable-opcache \
--with-imap=imap \
--with-kerberos \
--with-imap-ssl

Remember to run make && make install after you got things done right.

Then vi /etc/profile and add the text below to the bottom of this file.

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/php/bin
export PATH

source /etc/profile will make the changes take effect instantly.

Add to the start up

cp php.ini-production /etc/php.ini
cp /usr/local/php/etc/php-fpm.conf.default /usr/local/php/etc/php-fpm.conf
cp /usr/local/php/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf.default /usr/local/php/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
cp sapi/fpm/php-fpm /usr/local/sbin/php-fpm
chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/php-fpm

and edit or create /lib/systemd/system/php-fpm.service with following content

[Unit]
Description=PHP FastCGI process manager
After=local-fs.target network.target nginx.service
[Service]
PIDFile=/run/php/php-fpm.pid
ExecStartPre=/bin/mkdir --parents /run/php
ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/php-fpm --nodaemonize --fpm-config /usr/local/php/etc/php-fpm.conf
Type=simple
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Remember to execute systemctl enable php-fpm to enable the autostart.

3.Install MySQL

Easiest one as you can do it with yum install

Install/Update the yum repo

Go to https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/repo/yum/ and check the latest version of the yum repo of your OS version.

Just like the one above.

wget https://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql57-community-release-el7-11.noarch.rpm
md5sum mysql57-community-release-el7-11.noarch.rpm

If the MD5 matches, go on. If not, retry downloading.

sudo rpm -ivh mysql57-community-release-el7-11.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install mysql-server

When things are done, set the automatic startup and configure the MySQL for using:

systemctl start mysqld
systemctl enable mysqld
systemctl status mysqld 

# No longer needed in the latest release. 
# No default password for root anymore
grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysqld.log

sudo mysql_secure_installation