How To Install LEMP Stack On RHEL (NGINX, Mariadb & PHP)

The LEMP stack is a popular web development platform that consists of Linux, Nginx, MySQL, and PHP. This article will guide you through installing the LEMP stack on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Note: Please Note That the Following Tutorial 100% could be applied to any Linux Distribution based on RHEL, whether CentOS, Rocky, or Alma Linux.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure that you have the following:

1- A RHEL server with a valid subscription, If you don’t yet have a subscription, you can follow our tutorial from the link below on how to get a free RHEL Subscription

How To Obtain a RHEL Subscription For Free: Complete Guide

2- A user with sudo privileges because This tutorial uses the sudo privileges to manage the administration tasks. Additionally, You can switch to the root user by running the following command and entering the root password.

su -

3- A basic understanding of Linux commands

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The Minimum Requirements for the Machine is as follows:

2 or more CPUs.

2 or more GB of Memory.

5 GB or more of disk space.

All of these hardware specs depend on how big your application is.

Steps to install LEMP Stack on RHEL

Step 1: Activating Your RHEL Subscription

Make sure that your rhel server is attached to a valid rhel subscription. We will first remove all the old rhel subscriptions using the following command

subscription-manager remove --all

subscription-manager clean

Then Attach Your RHEL Subscription using the following command

sudo subscription-manager register --org=OrganizationID --activationkey="KeyNameHere"

Or You can Attach Your RHEL Subscription using your Red Hat email & password as following

subscription-manager register --username youremail@gmail.com --password yourpassword

Now verify that Your machine has an active RHEL Subscription by typing the following command

subscription-manager list --installed

Step2: Update Your Machine, Add the Required Repos, and Install Basic tools

A) Verify Your Current RHEL Release

cat /etc/redhat-release

B) Update the system

sudo dnf update

Note: if there’s a new Linux Kernel downloaded after updating your machine, It’s highly recommend rebooting your machine so that your machine can operate with the new Linux kernel, to reboot just type

sudo reboot

C) Now and after rebooting verify your current RHEL release ( Optional )

cat /etc/redhat-release

D) Now Add the EPEL Repo

sudo subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-9-$(arch)-rpms

sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm

E) Also Add the Remi Repos For Multiple PHP Releases

The Remi’s Repo URL is : https://rpms.remirepo.net

You can add it by typing the following command

sudo dnf install https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-9.rpm

F) Verify The current active Repositories

sudo dnf repolist

G) Install these useful software,

sudo dnf install vim bash-completion net-tools wget unzip dnf-utils traceroute psacct curl rear bind-utils git rsnapshot

Step3: Installing & Configuring NGINX Web Server on RHEL

NGINX is a versatile web server software with a wide range of use cases. It can be used as a web server, reverse proxy, load balancer, or cache server. It also can be used to build a Content Delivery Network, and It also can act as an API Gateway for managing API requests and responses, and finally in Microservices Architecture: NGINX can be used to connect microservices, manage communication between services, and enforce security and rate limiting policies.

Before installing NGINX, It’s very useful to check the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Life Cycle Page for each software you want to install to see each software Release Date & Retirement Date

URL : https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/rhel-app-streams-life-cycle

A) You can list all the available NGINX Modules that you can choose a one from them to be installed by typing

dnf module list nginx

But we will install nginx 1.20 which is supported for the full life cycle of RHEL 9, as stated in the section Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Life Cycle in the above URL

NGINX Version 1.20 Release Date is: May 2022

NGINX Version 1.20 Retirement Date is: May 2032

B) So install nginx by typing the following command

sudo dnf install nginx

C) Verify Your Installed NGINX Version

nginx -v

The Output should be like this

nginx version: nginx/1.20.1

D) Enable NGINX to start while the machine boots up by running the following command

systemctl enable --now nginx.service

E) Check It’s now active and running with no issues

systemctl is-active nginx.service

systemctl status nginx.service

The Output should look like this

● nginx.service – The nginx HTTP and reverse proxy server

Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; preset: disabled)

Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service.d

└─php83-php-fpm.conf

Active: active (running) since Sat 2025-01-18 10:27:14 EET; 1min 27s ago

Process: 2957 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/rm -f /run/nginx.pid (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Process: 2958 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Process: 2959 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Main PID: 2960 (nginx)

Tasks: 5 (limit: 26355)

Memory: 4.8M

CPU: 30ms

CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service

├─2960 “nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx”

├─2961 “nginx: worker process”

├─2962 “nginx: worker process”

├─2963 “nginx: worker process”

└─2964 “nginx: worker process”

F) Configure the firewall to allow NGINX Ports (80 & 443) by running the following commands

firewall-cmd --add-service={http,https} --permanent

firewall-cmd --reload

And check that the http & https are now existing in the allowed services

firewall-cmd --list-all

The Output should look like this

public (active)

target: default

icmp-block-inversion: no

interfaces: enp1s0

sources:

services: cockpit dhcpv6-client http https

ports: 55335/tcp

protocols:

forward: yes

masquerade: no

forward-ports:

source-ports:

icmp-blocks:

rich rules:

G) Testing the NGINX Web Server

If You have installed NGINX on your local machine, you can simply test NGINX by typing your local ip address which is 127.0.0.1, or localhost directly in your browser address.

But If You’ve installed NGINX on a different machine, just type the machine ip address in your browser.

In both cases, you should see the “Red Hat Enterprise Linux Test Page” web page as follows which indicates that your NGINX has successfully been installed & running.

Step 4: Installing & Configuring PHP-FPM on RHEL

Important Note Before Continuing: Starting From RHEL 9 the mod_php module provided with PHP for use with the Apache HTTP Server is no longer available.

Important Info: mod_PHP is a module for the Apache http web server which allows PHP Scripting Language to be run as part of the basic suite of Apache. This means that If a user requests a PHP page, Then the Apache will include mod_PHP, which interprets and processes the PHP code.

When mod_php is enabled, Apache can handle PHP requests directly, without the need for an external PHP processor like FastCGI or mod_fcgid. This can improve performance, as the PHP interpreter is tightly integrated with the web server.

However, mod_php also has some drawbacks, such as:

Tight coupling between Apache and PHP, making it harder to upgrade or replace either component.

Security risks if Apache is compromised, as the attacker may gain access to the PHP environment.

Limited scalability, as each Apache process handles PHP execution, which can lead to increased memory usage and slower performance under high load.

So We will be using PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager). which is a powerful alternative to mod_php and offers improved speed, stability, and resource management, making it an essential component for high-traffic websites.

To read more about the key differences between mod_php & PHP-FPM, you can consult the following documentation

https://www.zend.com/blog/apache-phpfpm-modphp

A) List all the available PHP Versions in the existing repositories which can be installed

dnf module list php

For example, we’ll install PHP Version 8.4

B) So, First We’ll enable the required PHP version as follows

dnf module enable php:remi-8.4

C) Then we will install PHP-FPM

dnf install php84-php php84-php-fpm

D) Verify Your installed PHP Version by running the following command

php84 –version

E) Start & Enable The PHP-FPM to auto-start at system boot time

systemctl enable --now php84-php-fpm.service

F) Check PHP-FPM Status

systemctl is-active php84-php-fpm.service

systemctl status php84-php-fpm.service

The Output should look like this

● php84-php-fpm.service – The PHP FastCGI Process Manager

Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/php84-php-fpm.service; enabled; preset: disabled)

Active: active (running) since Sat 2025-01-18 14:39:14 EET; 1min 0s ago

Main PID: 4830 (php-fpm)

Status: “Processes active: 0, idle: 5, Requests: 0, slow: 0, Traffic: 0.00req/sec”

Tasks: 6 (limit: 26355)

Memory: 14.4M

CPU: 62ms

CGroup: /system.slice/php84-php-fpm.service

├─4830 “php-fpm: master process (/etc/opt/remi/php84/php-fpm.conf)”

├─4831 “php-fpm: pool www”

├─4832 “php-fpm: pool www”

├─4833 “php-fpm: pool www”

├─4834 “php-fpm: pool www”

└─4835 “php-fpm: pool www”

Now Since we are using NGINX with PHP-FPM, we need to make PHP-FPM run as the nginx user, because in fact by default PHP-FPM runs as the Apache user.

G) So we need to edit the PHP-FPM config file as following

vim /etc/opt/remi/php84/php-fpm.d/www.conf

Find the two following lines

user = apache

group = apache

And Change them to

user = nginx

group = nginx

Also, change the following line

listen.acl_users = apache

to

listen.acl_users = nginx

Then save & close the file and restart the PHP-FPM process

systemctl restart php84-php-fpm.service

H) Testing PHP with NGINX

First You’ve to add the following lines under the server block to the NGINX main configuration file

vim /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

# pass the PHP scripts to the FastCGI server listening on the Unix socket

location ~ \.php$ {

fastcgi_pass unix:/var/opt/remi/php84/run/php-fpm/www.sock;

fastcgi_index index.php;

fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;

include fastcgi_params;

fastcgi_buffers 1024 4k;

fastcgi_buffer_size 128k;

}

Image Name: NGINX-WITHFASTCGI

Then save the file & exit

Restart the NGINX

systemctl restart nginx.service

Now we need to create a PHP file in the document root directory as follows to see if the NGINX with PHP-FPM could process this php file or not

vim /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php

Paste the following code into that file.

<?php

phpinfo();

Save the file and exit.

Now head over to your browser and type the IP Address of your local or remote machine followed by the PHP file as following

http://127.0.0.1/info.php

and you should get a page like this indicating that PHP-FPM is successfully installed and NGINX can communicate with it.

I) You may also need these php packages ( This step is optional, but you’ve to consult your app dependencies )

sudo dnf install php84-php php84-php-pecl-imagick-im7 php84-php-bcmath php84-php-cli php84-php-fpm php84-php-mbstring php84-php-opcache php84-php-pdo php84-php-sodium php84-php-xml php84-php-mysqlnd php84-php-pecl-mysql php84-php-gd php84-php-pecl-zip php84-php-common php84-php-ioncube-loader php84-php-pear php84-php-intl php84-php-soap php84-php-pecl-xmlrpc

Step 5: Installing & Configuring MariaDB on RHEL

MariaDB is a popular open-source relational database management system that is widely used in many web applications. MariaDB is also considered a drop-in replacement for MySQL. It is developed by former members of the MySQL team.

A) Enter the following Linux command to install the mariadb server & client packages

sudo dnf install mariadb-server mariadb

B) Next we will set the MariaDB character set to utf8mb4, and the collation to utf8mb4_general_ci

To do that, open the MariaDB Server Configuration File

vim /etc/my.cnf.d/mariadb-server.cnf

Then Add these two lines under the Global [mysqld] Configuration Group

character_set_server = ‘utf8mb4’

collation_server = ‘utf8mb4_general_ci’

Then Save the File & Exit

Also, We have to change the default character set in the MariaDB Client Configuration file

vim /etc/my.cnf.d/client.cnf

Add the following line under the Global [client] Configuration Group

default-character-set=utf8mb4

Then save the file & quit

C) Now start & Enable MariaDB

systemctl enable --now mariadb.service

D) Ensure that the MariaDB is active and enabled

systemctl is-active mariadb.service

systemctl status mariadb.service

The Output

● mariadb.service – MariaDB 10.5 database server

Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; preset: disabled)

Active: active (running) since Sat 2025-01-18 22:17:23 EET; 1min 37s ago

Docs: man:mariadbd(8)

Main PID: 4635 (mariadbd)

Status: “Taking your SQL requests now…”

Tasks: 8 (limit: 26355)

Memory: 71.9M

CPU: 277ms

CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service

└─4635 /usr/libexec/mariadbd –basedir=/usr

E) Run the MariaDB Security Script, type the following command

mariadb-secure-installation

Follow the steps as in the below images, and don’t forget to enter a new password for the mariadb root user

Change the root password? [Y/n] Y

F) Now you can run the following command and enter MariaDB root password to log into the MariaDB shell.

mariadb -u root -p

The Output will look like this

Enter password:

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.

Your MariaDB connection id is 19

Server version: 10.5.22-MariaDB MariaDB Server

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]>

To exit from the MariaDB Shell, Just type the following command

exit;

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve successfully installed NGINX, PHP-FPM, and MariaDB on a RHEL Machine, For your machine’s security, you have to remove the info.php file now to prevent anyone from seeing it.

rm -f /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php

And I hope this tutorial helped you.