Install & Configure LAMP (Apache/MySQL/PHP) in openSUSE 11.0

One of the many popular combinations in Linux is the LAMP setup. LAMP to expand is Linux Apache MySQL PHP. Most of the websites running on the internet these days or LAMP servers where
Linux is your flavor opensource operating system (openSUSE for us :-))
Apache2 is the master webserver on the planet
MySQL is your favorite opensource database
PHP is the popular web programming language

The easiest way to get the LAMP server installed would be to install LAMP from the YaST GUI as follows:
1. Computers - YaST - Install Software - Set filter to “Patterns” then select and accept “Web and LAMP” under Server functions. But, this installs things we don’t need from LAMP perpesctive like DNS, Perl modules etc.

I prefer the manual option to setup a LAMP Server.
So without wasting much of time, lets proceed to get LAMP up and running on your openSUSE in no time. I’m using openSUSE 11.0 but the procedure should equally work on earlier 10.3 and other 10.2 versions.
Install & Configure Apache2 Webserver
Install Apache webserver

opensuse11:~ # yast2 –install apache2

This should install apache webserver. To check try the following command:

opensuse11:~ # rcapache2 status
Checking for httpd2: unused

That tells you, the Apache webserver is installed but just not started yet.
To test if the webserver serves pages, add a file index.html into /srv/www/htdocs/ directory. This is the default web root directory for apache on your system.

opensuse11:~ # cd /srv/www/htdocs
opensuse11:~ # vi index.html

and enter some text say “Welcome to openSUSE 11.0”
Start Apache2 Webserver
Now start the Apache 2 webserver so we can check if it works OK.

opensuse11:~ # rcapache2 start
Starting httpd2 (prefork) done

Now, open a web browser like Firefox and go to http://localhost and you should see the ext you entered (here “Welcome to openSUSE 11.0″)
Let’s proceed to install PHP5
Install PHP5

opensuse11:~ # yast2 –install php5 php5-mysql apache2-mod_php5

This should install PHP5, PHP5-MySQL module and the Apache2 PHP5 module.
For Apache2 to enable the PHP5 module, restart for changes to take effect.

opensuse11:~ # rcapache2 restart
Syntax OK
Shutting down httpd2 (waiting for all children to terminate) done
Starting httpd2 (prefork) done

Install & configure MySQL

opensuse11:~ # yast2 –install mysql mysql-tools

This should install MySQL Database Server and options mysql-tools (for administration) on your openSUSE. To check the installation, run the following command:

opensuse11:~ # rcmysql status
Checking for service MySQL: unused

The above indicates that the MySQL Server is installed but not started yet.
Start MySQL Server

opensuse11:~ # rcmysql start
Starting service MySQL done

By default there is no root password set for MySQL and it is important to set the password for the ROOT account.
Set Root Password

opensuse11:~ # mysqladmin -u root -p rootpassword

This should set the root password as “rootpassword”. Set the password to something more appropriate.
To check if Root password is set and the MySQL Client can logon to the MySQL Server try the following:

opensuse11:~ # mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 1
Server version: 5.0.51a SUSE MySQL RPM
Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the buffer.
mysql> show databases;
+——————–+
| Database |
+——————–+
| information_schema |
| mysql |
| test |
+——————–+
3 rows in set (0.04 sec)
mysql>

In the above, I used mysql client to logon as root, entered the password and list the databases. That completes the installation of LAMP on openSUSE 11.0
To administer MySQL database, the easiest and the popular tool is phpMyAdmin, given that we have discussed PHP5, apache2 setup here which are required for phpMyAdmin, it makes sense to look at quickly setting up and configure phpMyAdmin
Install phpMyAdmin

opensuse11:~ # yast2 –install phpMyAdmin

This installs phpMyAdmin and setup a website at /srv/www/htdocs/phpMyAdmin directory. Change directory and use the sample config file to quickly setup phpMyAdmin.

opensuse11:~ # cd /srv/www/htdocs/phpMyAdmin
opensuse11:~ # cp config.sample.inc.php config.inc.php

Edit the file and look for

$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = ‘mysqladmin’;

Enter a value for blowfish secret (I’ve set it to mysqladmin here)
Thats done and has the default configs on it. Logon to phpMyAdmin from http://localhost/phpMyAdmin with the MySQL root username and password.
For advanced documentation, click here