In this guide, you’ll learn how to install a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server on a Raspberry Pi. LAMP is a software bundle that is used for web development. The Raspberry Pi will have Raspbian OS installed and you’ll use phpMyAdmin to easily manage your database through a web interface.
Prerequisites
Before continuing with this tutorial:
- You should be familiar with the Raspberry Pi board – read Getting Started with Raspberry Pi;
- You should have the Raspbian or Raspbian Lite operating system installed – read Installing Raspbian Lite, Enabling and Connecting with SSH;
- You also need the following hardware:
If you like home automation and you want to build a complete home automation system, I recommend downloading my home automation course.
After having your Raspberry Pi board prepared with Raspbian OS, you can continue with this tutorial.
You can either run the next commands on a Raspberry Pi set as a desktop computer or using an SSH connection.
Updating and Upgrading
Before starting the installation procedure, open a Terminal window and run the following commands to update your Pi:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -yInstall Apache2 on Raspberry Pi
Apache2 is the most widely used web server software. Briefly, a web server is the software that handles requests to access a web page. Then, depending on the page you have requested, the server will generate the document to serve you (.html, .php, etc).
To install Apache2 on your Raspberry Pi, run the next command:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt install apache2 -y
That’s it! Apache is now installed. To test your installation, change to the /var/www/html directory and list the files:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd /var/www/html
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ ls -al
index.htmlYou should have an index.html file in that folder. To open that page in your browser, you need to know the Raspberry Pi IP address. Use:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ hostname -I
In my case, the Raspberry Pi IP address is 192.168.1.86. If you open your RPi IP address in any browser in your local network, a similar web page should load (http://192.168.1.86):
Install PHP on Raspberry Pi
PHP is a server side scripting language. PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is used to develop dynamic web applications. A PHP file contains <?php … ?> tags and ends with the extension “.php“.
To install PHP on Raspberry Pi, run:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo apt install php -yYou can remove the index.html and create a PHP script to test the installation:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo rm index.html
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo nano index.phpIn your index.php file add the following code to echo the “hello world” message:
<?php echo "hello world"; ?>
To save your file: press Ctrl+X, followed by y, and press Enter to exit.
Finally, restart Apache2:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo service apache2 restartTo test if Apache2 is serving .php files, open the Raspberry Pi IP address and it should display the “hello world” message from the index.php script created earlier.
If everything is working, you can remove index.php file from the /var/www/html directory:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo rm index.phpInstall MySQL (MariaDB Server) on Raspberry Pi
MySQL (often pronounced My S–Q–L) is a popular open source relational database.
Install the MySQL Server (MariaDB Server) and PHP-MySQL packages by entering the following command:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo apt install mariadb-server php-mysql -y
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo service apache2 restartAfter installing MySQL (MariaDB Server), it’s recommend to run this command to secure your MySQL installation:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo mysql_secure_installationThis should appear in your Terminal window:
- You will be asked Enter current password for root (type a secure password): press Enter
- Type in Y and press Enter to Set root password
- Type in a password at the New password: prompt, and press Enter. Important: remember this root password, as you will need it later
- Type in Y to Remove anonymous users
- Type in Y to Disallow root login remotely
- Type in Y to Remove test database and access to it
- Type in Y to Reload privilege tables now
When the installation is completed, you’ll see the message: “Thanks for using MariaDB!”.
If you experience any error login into phpMyAdmin, you might need to create a new user to login. Those commands will create a new user with name (admin) and password (your_password).
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo mysql --user=root --password
> create user admin@localhost identified by 'your_password';
> grant all privileges on *.* to admin@localhost;
> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
> exit;Install phpMyAdmin on Raspberry Pi
phpMyAdmin is a free software tool written in PHP, intended to handle the administration of MySQL using a web interface.
To install phpMyAdmin on a Raspberry Pi, type the following command into the terminal:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo apt install phpmyadmin -yPHPMyAdmin installation program will ask you few questions. We’ll use the dbconfig-common.
- Select Apache2 when prompted and press the Enter key
- Configuring phpmyadmin? OK
- Configure database for phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common? Yes
- Type your password and press OK
Enable the PHP MySQLi extension and restart Apache2 for changes to take effect:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo phpenmod mysqli
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo service apache2 restartWhen you go to your RPi IP address followed by /phpmyadmin (in my case http://192.168.1.86/phpmyadmin), you’ll probably see the “Not Found” error page in your browser:
If that’s the case, you’ll have to move the phpmyadmin folder to /var/www/html, run the next command:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo ln -s /usr/share/phpmyadmin /var/www/html/phpmyadminNow, if you list the files, it should return the phpmyadmin folder:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ ls
phpmyadmin
Reload your web page (http://192.168.1.86/phpmyadmin), your should see the login page for phpMyAdmin web interface::
Enter your defined username (it should be Username = root) and the password you defined during the installation.
Press the Go button to login. A new page loads:
That’s it! Your Raspberry Pi board is prepared with a LAMP server: Apache2, MySQL, PHP. We’ve also decided to include phpMyAdmin in this installation for an easier database management through a web interface.
Optional Step (but recommended)
To manage your web pages, you should change the permissions for your /var/www/html/ folder. To do this, run the following commands:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls -lh /var/www/
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo chown -R pi:www-data /var/www/html/
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo chmod -R 770 /var/www/html/
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls -lh /var/www/After running these commands, you’ll see something as follows:
Wrapping Up
We hope you found this guide useful! Your Raspberry Pi has a LAMP server with phpMyAdmin that allows you to build interesting IoT projects like these:
- ESP32/ESP8266 Publish Data to Raspberry Pi LAMP Server
- Visualize Your Sensor Readings from Anywhere in the World (ESP32/ESP8266 + MySQL + PHP)
- ESP32/ESP8266 Insert Data into MySQL Database using PHP and Arduino IDE
Learn more about Home Automation with the Raspberry Pi: Build a Home Automation System for $100
Thanks for reading.
Hi, all but completed this, however, I seem to have failed at the last hurdle. I cannot log in to phpMyAdmin with user Root, but I can log on as admin. However, having done so, I don’t have privileges to create a new database. Can you please advise…
Andrew, had the same problem.
Could you issue the following commnd in mysql:
SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
does that show an output in which there is an authentication plugin used for ‘root’?
If so, do the following:
ALTER USER root@localhost IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password;
SET PASSWORD=PASSWORD(‘yourpassword’);
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
That allowed me to log in as root
No, I don’t show a : “authentication plugin”, only “unix_socket”.
#mysql
MariaDB [(none)]> SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
Output:
| user | authentication_string | plugin | host |
| root | | unix_socket | localhost |
| phpmyadmin | | localhost |
To solve the problem, that you can not connect with root at phpmyadmin try the following:
$sudo mysql -u root
[(none)]> use mysql;
[mysql]> update user set plugin=” where User=’root’;
[mysql]> flush privileges;
[mysql]> \q
Make shure after plugin= there are two seperated ‘ (apostophes) not one double-one!
I had the same problem, it’s because you may have chosen a root password in Maria Db that phpmyadmin decides is insecure. You need to reset the password to something more secure…. digitalstartup.co.uk/t/cannot-log-in-to-phpmyadmin-ubuntu-server/374
Actually I have the same issue as Andrew: cant log in with root, but can log in with admin
seems solved, I put the solution under Andrews comment
By the way, looking at other guides, they suggest logging in with user phpmyadmin – whilst this login does work, it still doesn’t have privileges…
If you guys are having the same problem as Andrew try running the following commands
sudo mysql -p -u root
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON . TO ‘root’@localhost IDENTIFIED BY ‘password’;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
then try logging in again and it should work
Best of luck
Hi Ed, sorry, can you please say where I should issue these commands. I’m completely new to sql, etc…
I can log in with user as phpmyadmin and password that i set previously.
What do you meant by still doesn’t have privileges. How to check and confirm the privileges ?
I’ve now sorted this 🙂
In answer to Ong – even though I could log into phpMyAdmin, it wouldn’t allow me to create a database – I basically had read only rights. There was a red warning cross symbol saying No Privileges.
On installing onto a new Pi 3A+ I realised I’d not launched the mysql server using “sudo mysql” and then entered the following code:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo mysql –user=root –password
> create user andrew@localhost identified by ‘your_password’;
> grant all privileges on *.* to andrew@localhost;
> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
> exit;
This then allowed me (logged in as andrew) to create the database and complete the project
thank’s 🙂
Hi Andrew, I think I have the same problem as you. can you help me plzz…even if I could login to phpMyAdmin, it wouldn’t allow me to create a database – I basically had read-only rights. There was a red warning cross symbol saying No Privileges.
i don’t know what’s my problem even i follow all the steps … plzz i need a heelp and thanku
ed, thank you, your mysql mumbo jumbo worked for me
Obrigado me ajudou muito!
Can’t log in with either root or admin.
With root:
#1698 – Access denied for user ‘root’@’localhost’
! mysqli_real_connect(): (HY000/1698): Access denied for user ‘root’@’localhost’
With admin:
#1045 – Access denied for user ‘admin’@’localhost’ (using password: YES)
!mysqli_real_connect(): (HY000/1045): Access denied for user ‘admin’@’localhost’ (using password: YES)
Otherwise, fantastic job!!
Did some research on Ask Ubuntu and in 2018 someone suggested using “phpmyadmin” which works.
If you feel more adventurous, you can set up a RPi server with these components running in Docker containers. A South African guy called Graham Garner created a very convenient menu and supporting scripts to initially set up the software stack and manage the containers afterwards.
See https://sensorsiot.github.io/IOTstack/
Once this is in place, it is very easy to add additional containers from
https://hub.docker.com/
Disclaimer:
Totally new to installing and using db’s
Darn, I was getting all the for mentioned errors. And I implemented several of the suggested solutions, but, I was still getting the errors. So, I decided to do the old reboot trick and it worked. Wish I could say what exactly fixed it.
After rebooting, from the browser page, tried to login again and it failed when I used root@localhost and my password. I dropped the “@localhost”, which I had tried prior to the reboot, off the user name and only used “root” and the password. And up came the phpmyadmin home page. BTW, I never was able to login using “admin”
one thing I did figure out was, to verify if you are using the correct root password, you can re-issue the cmd:
“sudo mysql_secure_installation”.
If you just hit ENTER, you will get an error if the root password has been set somehow.
You can then type the password which you “think” is the correct one, if it is, the script continues and you can ^C’d out of it.
then I rebooted, tried to log
Best thing about a raspberry pi is you can do this tutorial over and over again :). I almost have this memorized. Thank you Ed for your work you put into this. I have become a little big less stressed in the shell!
Great tutorial. Just works! Thanks!
Very good tutorial. Successful outcome. Previously i have found this install a long process. But you accurately specified ability level in the prerequisites which I am now familiar with.
In the I have fallen foul at the password phase when installing MYSQL. I have added extra notes to go with yours in my note book:
You wrote: “at the New password: prompt, and press Enter.”
I Wrote” (Important: Plan ahead, Practice write User name and password pair before entering, YOU ONLY ONE GO AT TYPING THIS PASSWORD – DOES NOT ASK FOR A RETYPE, SO BE SURE WHEN PRESSING KEYS)
Excellent!!! Well written and on point. Thank you
I’m lost, tried everything I could think of, searched the web and still have an issue 🙁
In my browser window I see this;
Index of /
[ICO] Name Last modified Size Description
[ ] esp-data.php 2021-04-12 16:04 2.3K
[DIR] phpmyadmin/ 2017-01-23 13:20 –
[ ] post-esp-data.php 2021-04-11 14:11 2.1K
Apache/2.4.38 (Raspbian) Server at 192.168.1.86 Port 80
Click on phpmyadmin, enter username (admin) and password… loads with no problem
Click on esp-data.php and get this: Connection has failed: Access denied for user ‘admin’@’localhost’ (using password: YES)
Click on post-esp-data.php and get this: No data posted with HTTP POST.
Running an ESP8266, serial window getting this: httpRequestData: api_key=tPmAT5Ab3j7F9&sensor=BME280&location=Office&value1=25.76&value2=56.35&value3=1014.36
HTTP Response code: 200
Where did the wheels come off the bus?
Thanks to linuxize.com issue has been resolved and the wheels are back on the bus.
Iam getting hello world ..i am getting the whole line instead.
Please help.
Everything worked exactly like stated in the tutorial, even the errors, until “Reload your web page (http://192.168._._/phpmyadmin), your should see the login page for phpMyAdmin web interface”. But at that point I didn’t get the phpMyAdmin web interface; instead yet another I got another 404 Not Found page.
Something’s broken. I have no idea at the moment.
same here I got 403 Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access this resource.
something like this…
All was working well according to the tutorial, I could access .phpmyadmin and all, but when I followed the last step, “Optional Step (but recommended)”, the commands
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls -lh /var/www/
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo chown -R pi:www-data /var/www/html/
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo chmod -R 770 /var/www/html/
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls -lh /var/www/
returned that pi:www-data wasn’t a valid user. I then tried to change the exact line to my username, caiomvital, and ran the “ls -lh /var/www/”. It returned me
“total 4,0K
drwxrwx— 2 caiomvital root 4,0K jan 15 12:22 html”
after these commands, when I tried to access my ip “192..168.0.4” again, it returned me the 403 Forbidden,
“You don’t have permission to access this resource”
“Apache/2.4.38 (Raspbian) Server at 192.168.0.4 Port 80”
How can I solve this?
By the way, thank you very much for the tutorial!
Hi Ciao
I have the same problem. I wonder if your found a solution/
Other wise a really good tutorial.
Chris
Replace pi in the command: sudo chown -R pi:www-data /var/www/html/ to the username you used when setting up your raspberry pi. pi is the default which is why it was used in this tutorial. If you have multiple users on the pi you will need to give the correct user permission.
Superb tutorial. Highly recommend…
This was a good article
None of the above has worked for me. I can not access myphpadmin no matter what!!!!!!
Same to me, i got a lot of messages in phpmyadmin page, if you solved pls text me how
I got some messages in phpmyadmin page
Deprecation Notice in ./../../php/Twig/Loader/FilesystemLoader.php#40
realpath(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($path) of type string is deprecated
Backtrace
FilesystemLoader.php#40: realpath(NULL)
./libraries/classes/Template.php#59: Twig\Loader\FilesystemLoader->__construct(string ‘/usr/share/phpmyadmin//templates/’)
./libraries/classes/Theme.php#103: PhpMyAdmin\Template->__construct()
./libraries/classes/Theme.php#174: PhpMyAdmin\Theme->__construct()
./libraries/classes/ThemeManager.php#306: PhpMyAdmin\Theme::load(
string ‘./themes/pmahomme’,
string ‘/usr/share/phpmyadmin/./themes/pmahomme/’,
)
./libraries/classes/ThemeManager.php#89: PhpMyAdmin\ThemeManager->loadThemes()
./libraries/classes/ThemeManager.php#129: PhpMyAdmin\ThemeManager->__construct()
./libraries/classes/ThemeManager.php#397: PhpMyAdmin\ThemeManager::getInstance()
./libraries/common.inc.php#315: PhpMyAdmin\ThemeManager::initializeTheme()
./index.php#23: require_once(./libraries/common.inc.php)
Please, one question: Has anyone tried installing Apache2 on Raspberry Pi with Bullseye? Thanks.
If you cant login follow this steps, they worked for me:
computingforgeeks.com/how-to-solve-error-1524-hy000-plugin-unix_socket-is-not-loaded-mysql-error-on-debian-ubuntu/
muito obrigado
Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access this resource.
Apache/2.4.54 (Debian) Server at 192.168.43.219 Port 80
Whenever i try to login into php my admin i got these in my browser
sorry i’m a troublesome newbie,
How do I send those commands to this board?
Hello, I’m looking to buy a raspberry pi pico with wireless wifi rp2040 microcontroller (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002074614015.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.1eb166bcgDKMac&algo_pvid=5a47d939-fb11-4df8-a871- 0ca51637d713&algo_exp_id=5a47d939-fb11-4df8-a871-0ca51637d713-22&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000019018843727%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21BRL%2185.58%2177.04%21%21%21%21%21%4021031a5516649859190373352e788a %2112000019018843727%21sea&curPageLogUid=h29Hmfx9iTGJ) to use in website projects, but I have verified that it has micro python support. Could you tell me if this module would be compatible?
Thanks,
Eliseu
Hi.
Compatible with what exactly?
Hi, instead of seeing the phpMyAdmin web interface, I get an “403 Forbidden” error. Does anyone of you have an idea on how to fix it or on what did I do wrong?
Thanks!
Hi, instead of seeing the phpMyAdmin web interface, I get an “Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access this resource.” error.
Does anyone have an idea on how to fix it or on what did I do wrong?
Thanks!
Hi I followed all of the above for a R pi 5 and all appeared to go well until I installed phpmyadmin.
I followed the scripts as above but when I tried to access from my browser I just get a blank page with no comments, errors or phpmyadmin.
Please help!
Any debug suggestions?
Can I uninstall phpmyadmin and try again?
Best wishes, Ian
All sorted now.
Reinstalled everything from scratch and got the phpmyadmin login page but still could not login.
Hours of research and finally got the clues here.
https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=222100
$ sudo mysql;
MariaDB [mysql]> select * from mysql.user;
No admin user!!
MariaDB [mysql]> CREATE USER ‘admin’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘password’;
MariaDB [mysql]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON . to ‘admin’@’localhost’ WITH GRANT OPTION;
All sorted. Ian
Hey, almost everything worked perfectly for me, except that I get an error whenever I want to open the priveleges tab on my database.
It says:
#1267 – Illegal mix of collations (utf8mb4_general_ci,COERCIBLE) and (utf8mb4_unicode_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation ‘<>’
And it would’nt go away :c
In optional setup replace pi: with $USER, as recent PI OS images do not use pi as the default user name.
when running mysql_secure_installation, you will get asked to switch to unix_socket authentication. If you have already password protected your root account, you can say no.
I am trying to log in to phpMyAdmin remotely as I am running my RPI headlessly. Have tried all combinations of my root user name on the RPI and passwords without luck. As I am remotely and not on localhost, I must be doing something wrong. Any suggestions?
after struggling with the -1 error I put the code into Grok to analyse and it came up with the following and fixed the issues
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
Key Observations and Issues in the ESP32 Code
Mixed Content-Type Headers and Incorrect POST Data:
The code sets the Content-Type header twice:
First as application/x-www-form-urlencoded for the intended POST data (httpRequestData).
Then as application/json for a test JSON payload ({“value1″:”19″,”value2″:”67″,”value3″:”78”}).
Only the JSON payload is sent (https.POST(“{\”value1\”:\”19\”,\”value2\”:\”67\”,\”value3\”:\”78\”}”)), which doesn’t match the PHP script’s expectations. The PHP script expects application/x-www-form-urlencoded data with specific fields (api_key, Sensor, Station, Water_T, etc.).
The httpRequestData string, which contains the correct sensor data, is constructed but commented out and never sent.
Fix:
Remove the JSON test payload and send the httpRequestData with the correct Content-Type.
Update the POST request to use httpRequestData:
also with the Wifi method
WiFiClientSecure Misuse:
The code creates a new WiFiClientSecure object in the loop() function (WiFiClientSecure *client = new WiFiClientSecure;), which is unnecessary since a global client is already defined. This can lead to memory leaks or connection issues.
The global client is initialized in the global scope (WiFiClientSecure *client = new WiFiClientSecure;), but the loop() creates a new local instance, which shadows the global one.
Fix:
Remove the local client declaration in loop() and use the global client.
Move the setInsecure() call to setup() since it only needs to be set once.
Server URL and Network Issues:
The serverName is set to 192.**..***/post-Lake-Data.php, which is a local IP address. If the ESP32 and the server are not on the same network, or if the server is not reachable at this IP, the connection will fail, resulting in a -1 error.
The use of WiFiClientSecure with setInsecure() suggests the code is prepared for HTTPS, but the URL uses HTTP (192.**..***/post-Lake-Data.php). If the server expects HTTPS, this mismatch could cause a connection failure.
Fix:
Ensure the server is accessible at 192.**..*** from the ESP32’s network.
If the server uses HTTPS, update the URL to https://192.***.*.***/post-Lake-Data.php. If it’s HTTP, switch to WiFiClient instead of WiFiClientSecure:
Hi.
Thanks for your comment.
We have to revisit this tutorial.
Regards,
Sara