✅ Day 17 of My Cloud Journey — LAMP vs LEMP Stack on AWS EC2 🚀

Today, I dove deep into two foundational stacks used for hosting dynamic web applications:
🔹 LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP
🔹 LEMP: Linux, NGINX, MySQL, PHP (pronounced "Engine-X")

The goal was to install and configure both stacks on separate EC2 instances and understand their internal workings.

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🏗️ Infrastructure Setup (Same for Both)

1. Launched EC2 Instances (Amazon Linux 2 or Ubuntu)

2. Placed them in a public subnet

3. Allowed traffic in Security Groups:

   • Port 22 (SSH)

   • Port 80 (HTTP)

4. Connected via SSH to install necessary software

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🔧 Part 1: Setting Up LAMP Stack (Apache)

✅ Steps:

1. Install Apache:

    sudo yum install httpd -y
    sudo systemctl enable httpd
    sudo systemctl start httpd
   

2. Install PHP:

    sudo yum enable php8.2
    sudo yum install php php-mysqlnd -y
   

3. Test PHP:

    echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" | sudo tee /var/www/html/info.php
   

4. Install MariaDB (MySQL):

    sudo yum install mariadb105-server -y
    sudo systemctl start mariadb
    sudo systemctl enable mariadb
   

5. Secure MySQL (Optional):

    sudo mysql_secure_installation
   

✅ Apache will serve content from /var/www/html/
✅ PHP works seamlessly with Apache via mod_php

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⚡ Part 2: Setting Up LEMP Stack (NGINX)

✅ Steps:

1. Install NGINX:

   
    sudo yum install nginx -y
    sudo systemctl enable nginx
    sudo systemctl start nginx
   

2. Install PHP + PHP-FPM:

   
    sudo yum install php php-fpm php-mysqlnd -y
   

3. Configure PHP-FPM:
   Edit /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf:

    user = nginx
    group = nginx
   

4. Configure NGINX for PHP:
   Edit /etc/nginx/nginx.conf or create a server block:

    location ~ \.php$ {
        root           /usr/share/nginx/html;
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        fastcgi_params;
    }
   

5. Restart Services:

    sudo systemctl restart php-fpm
    sudo systemctl restart nginx
   

6. Test PHP:

    echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" | sudo tee /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php
   

✅ NGINX will serve content from /usr/share/nginx/html/
✅ PHP is handled more efficiently via php-fpm

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🔍 LAMP vs LEMP – Key Differences

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🧠 What I Learned

• How to install and configure both Apache and NGINX

• PHP integration differences between mod_php and php-fpm

• NGINX’s performance advantage and static file handling

• MySQL basic management (starting/stopping services)

• File structure and config files of both servers

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🚀 Why This Matters

Before jumping into WordPress or frameworks like Laravel, it’s crucial to know how web servers and databases interact.
LAMP/LEMP form the foundation of web hosting — locally or on the cloud.

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📅 What’s Next?

Day 18 — Mastering MySQL for Dynamic Websites 🛠️

Now that I understand LAMP & LEMP stacks, it's time to dive into MySQL, the backbone of dynamic web applications.

Tomorrow, I’ll be learning:

• 🔹 How to create a MySQL database and user

• 🔹 Writing basic queries: CREATE, INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE

• 🔹 Understanding tables, relationships, and normalization

• 🔹 Connecting MySQL to a web server (Apache/NGINX)

🎯 This is essential prep for upcoming projects like:

• Hosting WordPress manually on EC2

• Running dynamic apps with PHP + MySQL

• Migrating to managed services like Amazon RDS