(See the bonus online chapters for more information about these languages.)
Because all the technologies comprising LAMP are free and open source,
LAMP is inexpensive to set up and use, making it much more affordable than
other options for setting up a web server or even selling web hosting to others.
LAMP became popular during the initial rise of Linux as an operating system
for web hosting, both in large enterprise corporations looking to save money
and in small startup companies selling server space and web hosting to mom-
and-pop stores wanting to join the Internet craze. With its careful concern for
stability and security, inherited from the creator’s love of UNIX, coupled with
being free to install and use and update, Linux was from the start an ideal
platform for most hosting needs.
LAMP is still popular and in wide use today. Many large sites use LAMP
applications, and LAMP is not going away anytime soon.
Running on top of Linux is the Apache web server. (See Chapter 25, “Apache
Web Server Management,” for detailed information about Apache.) Apache
takes care of listening to an open communication port for requests and
responding to those requests by serving the requested information.
Working in conjunction with Apache is a database that stores the information
to be served. This is typically a relational database such as MySQL. (See
Chapter 28, “Administering Relational Database Services,” for detailed
information about MySQL.) These days, it could be MySQL or MariaDB or
PostgreSQL or another similar product.
Off the shelf commodity as well as custom content management software has
been written using PHP, Python, or Perl. For example, WordPress uses PHP,
django CMS uses Python, and Movable Type uses Perl. Which language you
install and use depends on the framework or software you are using or which
you prefer to use to write your software.
Of the web stacks discussed in this chapter, the LAMP stack is the easiest to
install quickly. If you install Ubuntu Server, you are given an option of setting
up the machine as a LAMP server during installation. You can even set the
root password for MySQL during installation. The upside is that you can have
a complete LAMP server up and running in 15 minutes or so. The downside
to this method is that you are limited in your configuration. You will install
Ubuntu (Linux), Apache, MySQL, and PHP. That is great if you simply want
to install a product such as WordPress next or do some simple web
development. For anything more unique, however, we suggest that you install
the server first and then install and configure each component, one at a time.
To install LAMP on your own, you need to first install Ubuntu—which can be
standard Ubuntu if you are going to use a local laptop or desktop machine for