Install PHP & MySQL on Amazon Linux EC2

AI & Web Product Engineer • Last Reviewed: September 2026

This guide walks you through setting up a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL) on an Amazon Linux 2023 EC2 instance. By the end, you'll have a working web server with PHP and a MySQL database.

1. Prerequisites

A running Amazon Linux 2023 EC2 instance.
SSH access to the instance (port 22 open in security group).
Port 80 open in the security group for HTTP traffic.

Connect to your instance:

ssh -i "your-key.pem" ec2-user@your-public-ip

2. Update the System

Always update packages before installing new software:

sudo dnf update -y

Note: Amazon Linux 2023 uses dnf. For Amazon Linux 2, use yum.

3. Install Apache (httpd)

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

Verify Apache is running:

sudo systemctl status httpd

You should now see the Apache test page at http://your-public-ip.

4. Install PHP

Install PHP and common extensions:

sudo dnf install -y php php-cli php-fpm php-mysqlnd php-xml php-mbstring php-curl php-zip php-json

Verify the PHP version:

php -v

Restart Apache to load PHP:

sudo systemctl restart httpd

5. Install MySQL

Install the MySQL community server:

sudo dnf install -y mysql-community-server

Start and enable MySQL:

sudo systemctl start mysqld
sudo systemctl enable mysqld

Find the temporary root password generated on first start:

sudo grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysqld.log

6. Secure MySQL

Run the built-in security script to set a root password and remove insecure defaults:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Follow the prompts to:

Change the temporary root password.
Remove anonymous users.
Disallow remote root login.
Remove the test database.

mysql -u root -p

7. Test PHP

Create a PHP info file to confirm PHP is working with Apache:

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

Visit http://your-public-ip/info.php in a browser. You should see the PHP information page.

Security tip: Delete this file after testing — it exposes server details. sudo rm /var/www/html/info.php

8. Verify Installation

Run a quick check on all services:

sudo systemctl status httpd
sudo systemctl status mysqld
php -v
mysql --version

Your LAMP stack is now ready. You can deploy PHP applications, WordPress, or Laravel on this EC2 instance.

Related: Back to AWS EC2 Tutorial