Setting up a LAMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP) development environment on Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty) LTS for local Drupal/Wordpress development

This is how I normally set up my local Drupal development machines after a fresh Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (desktop/MATE edition) install.

1. Install required packages

From Terminal, execute the following command to update the repository information and to get the system up-to-date:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Next, install some basic necessities:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server sshpass \
  geany gedit emacs vim gimp inkscape \
  git-core curl zlib1g-dev build-essential \
  python python-dev python-pip python-gpgme \
  libssl-dev libreadline-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 \
  libncurses-dev libgdbm-dev \
  libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev \
  software-properties-common python-software-properties \
  g++ make build-essential wwwconfig-common 

Next, install the latest version of Git from the Ubuntu Git Maintainers PPA:

sudo apt-get remove git
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:git-core/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git

Next, run the following command to install the required packages:

sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-doc \
  mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient-dev \
  php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-gd php5-mysql php5-cli \
  php5-curl php5-mcrypt php5-imagick phpmyadmin \
  php-invoker php5-xdebug php5-sqlite php-apc \
  php5-dev php-pear \
  drush postfix

Give the following inputs when asked for:

• MySQL Configuration:
  • New password for the MySQL "root" user: somesecurepasswordformysqlroot
• Postfix Configuration:
  • General type of mail configuration: Internet Site
  • System mail name: myname-local
• Configuring phpmyadmin:
  • Web server to reconfigure automatically: apache2
  • Configure database for phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common?Yes
  • Password of the database's administrative user: somesecurepasswordformysqlroot
  • Password for phpmyadmin: somesecurepasswordforphpmyadmin

2. Install PHP PECL uploadprogress:

sudo pecl install -Z uploadprogress
sudo sh -c 'echo "extension=uploadprogress.so" >> /etc/php5/mods-available/uploadprogress.ini'
sudo ln -s /etc/php5/mods-available/uploadprogress.ini /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-uploadprogress.ini
sudo service apache2 restart

3. Install Drush

Drush installation now works with Composer (a tool for dependency management in PHP - like npm for nodejs, bundler for ruby).
Use the following steps to install Composer globally:

cd ~/
wget -O - https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/composer /usr/bin/composer

Then use the following commands to install Drush globally:

sudo apt-get remove drush
cd ~/
rm -rf ~/.drush

sudo git clone https://github.com/drush-ops/drush.git /usr/local/src/drush
cd /usr/local/src/drush
sudo git checkout 7.0.0  #or whatever version you want.
sudo chmod a+x drush
sudo ln -s /usr/local/src/drush/drush /usr/bin/drush
sudo composer install

cd
drush --version

4. Fix the Fully Qualified Domain Name issue for Apache

Now, when you try restarting apache, you get an error as shown below:

~$ sudo service apache2 restart
 * Restarting web server apache2                                                
AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified 
domain name, using 127.0.1.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
                                                                         [ OK ]

To fix this, run the following commands:

echo "ServerName localhost" | sudo tee /etc/apache2/conf-available/fqdn.conf
sudo a2enconf fqdn
sudo service apache2 restart

5. Enable the mod_rewrite apache module (for "Clean URLs"):

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo service apache2 restart

6. Increase the upload_max_filesize php.ini value

Open the file for editing with:

sudo vim /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

and change the line which says:

upload_max_filesize = 2M

to

upload_max_filesize = 100M

Save the file, exit. Then restart apache:

sudo service apache2 restart

7. Enable PHP in user directories (such as ~/public_html):

Run the following command to open up the corresponding config file for editing:

sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-available/php5.conf

and comment out the following lines by adding a hash symbol '#' to the start of each line:

<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
    <Directory /home/*/public_html>
        php_admin_flag engine Off
    </Directory>
</IfModule>

such that the lines now look as follows:

#<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
#    <Directory /home/*/public_html>
#        php_admin_flag engine Off
#    </Directory>
#</IfModule>

8. Allow '.htaccess' files to override any apache server option under '~/public_html':

Open up the file for editing:

sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-available/userdir.conf

and change the line that says:

AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit Indexes

to

AllowOverride All

Save and exit.

Now enable mod_userdir:

sudo a2enmod userdir
sudo service apache2 restart

9. Test the setup

Now create the ~/public_html folder, and create a test php site:

mkdir -p ~/public_html/test
echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" > ~/public_html/test/info.php

Now change the USERNAME part in the following variable to your linux username, and then open up the URL in your web browser to make sure everything is working fine:

http://localhost/~USERNAME/test/info.php

You should see a huge table listing of all the PHP config.