Step-by-Step Guide to Installing LNMP (Linux, Nginx, MySQL, PHP) on CentOS

Environment description : The target platform is Linux (CentOS 6.9 or 7.3) with Nginx 1.8.0, MySQL 5.6.17, and PHP 5.6.32. Installation directories are /usr/local/mysql, /usr/local/php, and /usr/local/nginx respectively.

Preparation work :

Create a source directory: mkdir -p /usr/local/src/ Remove any existing Apache, MySQL, or PHP packages:

rpm -e httpd

rpm -e mysql

rpm -e php

yum -y remove httpd

yum -y remove mysql

yum -y remove php

Search and force‑remove leftover Apache packages using rpm -qa http* and rpm -e --nodeps <package_name>.

Disable SELinux if it interferes:

sed -i 's/SELINUX=enforcing/SELINUX=disabled/g' /etc/selinux/config

(permanent, requires reboot) or setenforce 0 (temporary).

Install required build tools:

yum -y install make gcc gcc-c++ gcc-g77 flex bison file libtool libtool-libs autoconf kernel-devel libjpeg libjpeg-devel libpng libpng-devel libpng10 libpng10-devel gd gd-devel freetype freetype-devel libxml2 libxml2-devel zlib zlib-devel glib2 glib2-devel bzip2 bzip2-devel libevent libevent-devel ncurses ncurses-devel curl curl-devel e2fsprogs e2fsprogs-devel krb5 krb5-devel libidn libidn-devel openssl openssl-devel gettext gettext-devel gmp-devel pspell-devel unzip libcap lsof

Installing MySQL 5.6.17 :

Create MySQL group and user (no login, no home):

groupadd mysql

useradd -s /sbin/nologin -g mysql -M mysql

Download and compile CMake (required for MySQL 5.6+):

wget http://www.cmake.org/files/v2.8/cmake-2.8.12.2.tar.gz

tar zxvf cmake-2.8.12.2.tar.gz

cd cmake-2.8.12.2

./configure

make && make install

Download MySQL source and compile with CMake options:

wget http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.6/mysql-5.6.17.tar.gz

tar zxvf mysql-5.6.17.tar.gz

cd mysql-5.6.17

cmake \

-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/mysql \

-DMYSQL_DATADIR=/usr/local/mysql/data \

-DSYSCONFDIR=/etc \

-DWITH_MYISAM_STORAGE_ENGINE=1 \

-DWITH_INNOBASE_STORAGE_ENGINE=1 \

-DWITH_MEMORY_STORAGE_ENGINE=1 \

-DWITH_READLINE=1 \

-DMYSQL_UNIX_ADDR=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock \

-DMYSQL_TCP_PORT=3306 \

-DENABLED_LOCAL_INFILE=1 \

-DWITH_PARTITION_STORAGE_ENGINE=1 \

-DEXTRA_CHARSETS=all \

-DDEFAULT_CHARSET=utf8 \

-DDEFAULT_COLLATION=utf8_general_ci \

-DMYSQL_USER=mysql \

-DWITH_DEBUG=0 \

-DWITH_SSL=system

make && make install

Configure my.cnf: rename any existing /etc/my.cnf to /etc/my.cnf.bak, copy my-default.cnf to /etc/my.cnf, then initialize the data directory:

/usr/local/mysql/scripts/mysql_install_db --defaults-file=/etc/my.cnf --basedir=/usr/local/mysql --datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data --user=mysql

Copy the init script and enable service:

cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysqld

chmod +x /etc/init.d/mysqld

chkconfig mysqld on

service mysqld start

Set root password and adjust PATH: vim /etc/profile (add PATH=/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH and export PATH) then source /etc/profile.

/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -uroot -p password 'your_password'

Optionally adjust firewall to allow port 3306:

firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=3306/tcp --permanent

firewall-cmd --reload

Installing PHP 5.6.32 :

Install required extensions: yum install libmcrypt libmcrypt-devel mcrypt mhash (if missing, enable EPEL repository first).

Download, extract, and compile PHP:

wget http://cn2.php.net/distributions/php-5.6.32.tar.gz

tar zxvf php-5.6.32.tar.gz

cd php-5.6.32

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/php --with-config-file-path=/usr/local/php/etc --enable-fpm --with-fpm-user=www --with-fpm-group=www --with-mysql=mysqlnd --with-mysqli=mysqlnd --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd --with-iconv-dir --with-freetype-dir --with-jpeg-dir --with-png-dir --with-zlib --with-libxml-dir=/usr --enable-xml --disable-rpath --enable-magic-quotes --enable-safe-mode --enable-bcmath --enable-shmop --enable-sysvsem --enable-inline-optimization --with-curl --with-curlwrappers --enable-mbregex --enable-mbstring --with-mcrypt --enable-ftp --with-gd --enable-gd-native-ttf --with-openssl --with-mhash --enable-pcntl --enable-sockets --with-xmlrpc --enable-zip --enable-soap --without-pear --with-gettext --disable-fileinfo --enable-maintainer-zts

make && make install

Configure PHP‑FPM:

mv /usr/local/php/etc/php-fpm.conf.default /usr/local/php/etc/php-fpm.conf

cp php.ini-production /usr/local/php/etc/php.ini

cp sapi/fpm/init.d.php-fpm /etc/init.d/php-fpm

chmod +x /etc/init.d/php-fpm

chkconfig --add php-fpm

chkconfig php-fpm on

groupadd www

useradd -s /sbin/nologin -g www -M www

/etc/init.d/php-fpm start

ln -s /usr/local/php/bin/php /usr/bin/php

Installing Nginx 1.8.0 :

Create nginx user/group and required directories:

groupadd -r nginx

useradd -s /sbin/nologin -g nginx -M nginx

mkdir -pv /var/tmp/nginx/client/

Download and compile Nginx:

wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.8.0.tar.gz

tar zxvf nginx-1.8.0.tar.gz

cd nginx-1.8.0

./configure \

--prefix=/usr/local/nginx \

--sbin-path=/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx \

--conf-path=/usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf \

--error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log \

--http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log \

--pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid \

--lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock \

--user=nginx \

--group=nginx \

--with-http_ssl_module \

--with-http_flv_module \

--with-http_stub_status_module \

--with-http_gzip_static_module \

--http-client-body-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/client/ \

--http-proxy-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/proxy/ \

--http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/fcgi/ \

--http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/uwsgi \

--http-scgi-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/scgi \

--with-pcre

make && make install

Create an init script (see source) and enable it:

chmod +x /etc/init.d/nginx

chkconfig --add nginx

chkconfig nginx on

systemctl restart nginx.service

(or /etc/init.d/nginx start)

Integrating Nginx with PHP :

Edit /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf to set user and worker processes, then add server block:

user nginx nginx;

location / {

root /home/www;

index index.php index.html index.htm;

}

location ~ \.php$ {

root /home/www;

fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;

fastcgi_index index.php;

fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;

include fastcgi_params;

}

Reload Nginx configuration ( /etc/init.d/nginx reload or service nginx restart).

Create a test index.php in the web root:

<?php

echo 'Hello,PHP';

phpinfo();

?>

Access it via a browser to verify that Nginx correctly forwards PHP requests.

Finally, open HTTP port 80 in the firewall (similar to the MySQL port command) and the LNMP environment on CentOS is ready for use.