LAMP or Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP is a typical stack for hosting websites on the internet. They work together as a web server, database, and scripting language for dynamic websites. They are all free, very capable, and also very configurable.

You can install each of these components separately on any Linux system, but Ubuntu made it easy to create a LAMP stack by creating a lamp-server task for apt. task is a meta-package for apt where it installs a group of packages along with the dependencies. A lamp-server task provides Apache, MySQL, and PHP installation for apt on Ubuntu with reasonable defaults and minimal effort.

Steps to install LAMP on Ubuntu:

  1. Launch terminal.
  2. Update apt's package list. 
    $ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for user: 
Hit:1 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Get:2 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease [111 kB]  
Get:3 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease [98.3 kB]  
Get:4 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease [107 kB]
Get:5 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [196 kB]
Get:6 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [177 kB]
Get:7 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/multiverse amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [2,468 B]
Get:8 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [1,972 B]
Get:9 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [21.2 kB]
Get:10 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [36.0 kB]
Fetched 751 kB in 2s (308 kB/s)             
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
  3. Install lamp-server via apt's task. 
    $ sudo apt install --assume-yes lamp-server^
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'libgssapi3-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libhttp-message-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'php7.4-cli' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libnghttp2-14' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libencode-locale-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libwind0-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mecab-utils' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libsasl2-modules-db' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libcurl4' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libldap-2.4-2' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libapache2-mod-php' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libssh-4' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libevent-core-2.1-7' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'php-common' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libaprutil1' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libbrotli1' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'php7.4-json' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mysql-client-8.0' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libheimntlm0-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mysql-server' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mysql-server-8.0' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libcgi-fast-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libhttp-date-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'perl-modules-5.30' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'liblwp-mediatypes-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libfcgi-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libmecab2' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libheimbase1-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mecab-ipadic-utf8' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libcgi-pm-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libaio1' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libsasl2-2' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libio-html-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'ssl-cert' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'apache2-data' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'php7.4-opcache' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libperl5.30' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libapr1' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libaprutil1-ldap' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libhtml-tagset-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'librtmp1' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libsasl2-modules' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mysql-client-core-8.0' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'php7.4-mysql' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libldap-common' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libhcrypto4-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'php7.4-readline' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'liblua5.2-0' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mysql-common' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libsodium23' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libhtml-template-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mecab-ipadic' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libtimedate-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libroken18-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'apache2-bin' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libasn1-8-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libkrb5-26-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'php7.4-common' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libjansson4' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libgdbm-compat4' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'apache2' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'php-mysql' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'apache2-utils' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libhx509-5-heimdal' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libhtml-parser-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'libapache2-mod-php7.4' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'liburi-perl' for task 'lamp-server'
Note, selecting 'mysql-server-core-8.0' for task 'lamp-server'
##### snipped
Suggested packages:
  apache2-doc apache2-suexec-pristine | apache2-suexec-custom php-pear
  libipc-sharedcache-perl mailx tinyca
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-utils libaio1 libapache2-mod-php
  libapache2-mod-php7.4 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
  libaprutil1-ldap libcgi-fast-perl libcgi-pm-perl libevent-core-2.1-7
  libfcgi-perl libhtml-template-perl liblua5.2-0 libmecab2 mecab-ipadic
  mecab-ipadic-utf8 mecab-utils mysql-client-8.0 mysql-client-core-8.0
  mysql-server mysql-server-8.0 mysql-server-core-8.0 php-common php-mysql
  php7.4-cli php7.4-common php7.4-json php7.4-mysql php7.4-opcache
  php7.4-readline
0 upgraded, 34 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 36.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 273 MB of additional disk space will be used.
##### snipped
  4. Check installed version of Apache, MySQL and PHP. 
    $ apt list apache2 mysql-server libapache2-mod-php
Listing... Done
apache2/focal,now 2.4.41-4ubuntu3 amd64 [installed]
apache2/focal 2.4.41-4ubuntu3 i386
libapache2-mod-php/focal,focal,now 2:7.4+75 all [installed]
mysql-server/focal-updates,focal-updates,focal-security,focal-security,now 8.0.21-0ubuntu0.20.04.4 all [installed]
  5. Check Apache and MySQL is running on their default ports. 
    $ ss -natp | grep -E ":80|:3306\ "
LISTEN  0        151            127.0.0.1:3306           0.0.0.0:*              
LISTEN  0        511                    *:80                   *:*
  6. Check if Apache is serving the default page correctly. 
    $ curl -s 127.0.0.1 | head

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <!--
    Modified from the Debian original for Ubuntu
    Last updated: 2016-11-16
    See: https://launchpad.net/bugs/1288690
  -->
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
  7. Log in to MySQL. 
    $ sudo mysql -u root
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 8
Server version: 8.0.21-0ubuntu0.20.04.4 (Ubuntu)

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Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

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

mysql>

    MySQL is by default configured with passwordless root account

  8. Create a PHP script to show installed PHP info. 
    $ echo '<?php phpinfo(); ?>' | sudo tee -a /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
  9. Access PHP script using web browser to see if PHP is configured correctly along with more details.
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