Fastest way to setup a Linux Virtual Server with LAMP

When it comes to server management, its something we all wish we had more time to spend on but the business world limits us to the bare minimum. Instead of preaching about how you should spend more time managing your server, I’m going to give you a brief run through of how to get your server up and running in the least amount of time.

Ground Zero

For most of my companies I recommend using Virtual Private Servers (VPS) instead of shared or dedicated servers. At the end of the day, most sites don’t need half the server they are running on and shared servers are so overloaded its not even funny. VPS is a more reasonable middle ground of cost vs performance but its not perfect either. I would recommend a VPS company to you, but to this day, I have not found one that I’ve been 100% happy with. I’m currently with a company mostly because they have not messed up bad enough that it was worth the hassle to move. Once you sign up for a VPS, you will be quickly asked what linux distro you want. I personally go with Debian because a base install of it boots up using 32mb of ram. With servers, you want a bare minimum install. There is no sense to running X11 (GUI) or applications you will never use.

Step One : Install LAMP

Once you are SSH logged into the server type this one command as root, “apt-get install phpmyadmin”

Done

Ok, I”m being a bit terse here but the reason I like Debian is mostly because of apt-get. Its amazingly easy to work with. By installing phpmyadmin it will get apache, mysql, php and many common php libraries that you have come to expect.