Setup LAMP Stack on a Remote Cloud Server + PHP Foundations

Sign up for a Linode cloud account on the node cloud platform, verify your email, enter billing and payment details, accept the master services agreement, and access the cloud manager.

Explore the Linode cloud manager interface, navigate left menu, manage nodes and volumes, compare block and object storage, and preview marketplace components like WordPress lamp stack for quick deployments.

Enable two-factor authentication on your Linode account to secure logins with knowledge and possession factors; install Google Authenticator, scan the QR code, and save the scratch code for backup.

Deploy your first Linode virtual instance with a Ubuntu 20.04 LTS image in Newark, New Jersey, and choose the nano 1gb plan. Set a strong root password.

Explore the Linode instance dashboard to monitor a test VM, review analytics, networks, and storage, and manage volumes, configurations, backups, and settings with actionable SSH access and IP details.

Learn to securely connect to a remote cloud instance via the command line, update the operating system, install or remove software, monitor performance, and configure security patches and firewalls.

Learn how SSH key authentication protects remote server access from brute force password attacks, using public and private keys with OpenSSH tools, ssh key gen, and Putty.

Generate a 4096-bit SSH key pair on Windows with PuttyGen, save the public and private keys, and configure Putty to authenticate to a remote node using the public key.

Generate a 4096-bit SSH key pair on macOS or Linux in the terminal, with a passphrase, then copy the public key via ssh-copy-id to the remote host and verify authentication.

Learn to add ssh public keys to your Linode cloud manager for future deployments, including labeling keys, pasting the public key, and enabling key-based provisioning for new instances.

Learn the Linux kernel, distributions, and Ubuntu's role in hosting websites, while comparing Linux with Windows and exploring Apache, Engine Xe, and PHP.

Explore the linux file system hierarchy and system root directory, differentiate absolute and relative paths, and identify key directories like /bin, /home, /var, and /etc for server administration.

Learn essential Ubuntu maintenance commands, including logging in via ssh, running apt list --upgradable, and using apt update, upgrade, dist upgrade, install, and remove to manage software.

Navigate Linux directory structure on Ubuntu using cd, pwd, and ls to move through root, system root, and var, then create and edit a text file with nano.

Master linux directory commands by creating, moving, copying, and deleting files and directories with mkdir, mv, cp, and rm, navigating with cd and listing with ls.

Configure ubuntu basic server by setting a unique host name and updating the hosts file. Also configure time zone and clocks with time date ctl and prepare for non-root administration.

Discover why the root account is risky for admin tasks and learn to manage access with non-root users, groups like wheel or pseudo, and pseudo (sudo) commands.

Create a non-root user named Bob, add him to the pseudo group to gain superuser privileges, verify membership, and prepare for SSH key authentication.

Secure a non-root user account with ssh key authentication by creating a new key pair for Bob, configuring .ssh, updating authorized_keys, and logging in via Putty with the private key.

Disable root access and password authentication to harden your LAMP stack server, enforce ssh key authentication, and verify access safety through targeted tests.

Understand how web servers host and deliver content to end users, and the hardware, software, HTTP requests, DNS mappings, and HTML documents involved.

Choosing to self-host on a home computer poses risks and complexities, including limited upload bandwidth, power usage, dynamic IP, security, backups, and liability, making a hosting provider preferable.

Compare Nginx and Apache side by side, highlighting Nginx's event-driven handling of static content and reverse proxy load balancing, vs Apache's dynamic content processing and its extensive module support.

Explore how databases store and retrieve data for dynamic web apps, including profiles, messages, and posts, using a database management system, with relational (SQL) and non-relational (NoSQL) options.

Compare SQL relational databases with NoSQL databases, covering SQL's structured query language, relational models, NoSQL categories like key-value, document, wide column, graph, and table relationships such as one-to-many.

Explore the differences between relational and non-relational databases, focusing on ACID transaction standards—atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability—and the Cap Theorem guiding distributed systems.

Explore the CAP theorem for NoSQL databases, highlighting how horizontal scaling enables consistency, availability, and partition tolerance, unlike acid-compliant SQL.

Compare sql and nosql databases by highlighting the acid principle, the cap theorem, and scale up versus scale out, with data stored in tables or json documents.

Understand essential software stacks and key terms, including the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), interchangeable components like MariaDB and Python, and the roles of React, Angular, Node.js, and Express.

Differentiate frameworks from libraries by noting frameworks control code flow, while libraries provide reusable functions, with examples like React JS, Angular JS, Express JS, Laravel, and CodeIgniter.

Distinguish server-side and client-side scripting languages and identify how languages like PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, Perl, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript shape backend and browser-side behavior.

install and configure a lamp stack on ubuntu via the command line, including apache, mariadb, and php, and verify the setup using the default apache page.

Discover installing a lamp stack quickly with a marketplace one-click app during server deployment, configure MySQL root password and SSL, verify Apache, test PHP, then delete the test server.

Test PHP on Apache by creating an info.php in the /var/www/html web root and viewing its output in a browser. Verify PHP configuration and then delete the file.

Learn how to test a MariaDB connection from PHP, create a database and user, grant privileges, and perform basic data operations with SQL in a LAMP stack.

Create a PHP script to connect to MariaDB on a LAMP stack and output all records from the name list table as an HTML ordered list.

Discover how PHP, a free open source web scripting language, runs server-side via Apache, enabling database interactions with MySQL and cross-platform hosting on Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Learn to prepare and test PHP scripts locally with a lamp stack on a remote cloud server by using the web root folder and organized PHP lessons.

Create a basic PHP file that outputs hello world with echo, save it as intro.php in the PHP lessons folder, and view it at localhost/php lessons/intro.php.

Discover how to place PHP code within an HTML document, use echo statements with semicolons, and add single- and multi-line comments, while noting variable case sensitivity and error display.

Master PHP variables as containers for numbers and text, learn proper naming rules and the dollar syntax, and use echo to output values and simple expressions.

Understand PHP variable scope with global and local variables in functions. See a global outside a function trigger an undefined variable, while a local inside the function prints five.

Learn how the PHP static keyword preserves a function's local variable across calls, using a static x initialized to ten that increments on each execution of test one.

Compare PHP echo and print for output, noting echo accepts multiple parameters and is slightly faster, while print is limited; learn to embed HTML and variables in output.

Explore PHP data types—string, integer, float, array, null, and boolean—through practical examples like single and double-quoted strings and var_dump outputs, with the object type introduced in the next lesson.

Define a class with public properties like first name, last name, and age, create objects with new, and use a hello method to output each person’s details.

Explore PHP string functions, including word count, reverse, position, and replace, using hello world to show two-word counts, a reversed string, and replacing world with John to yield hello John.

Learn how PHP constants provide unchangeable, globally accessible values, created with define, named with letters or underscores, optionally case insensitive, and echoed inside functions.

Explore a comprehensive overview of PHP operators, including arithmetic, assignment, comparison, increment and decrement, logical, string, and array operators, using echo and var_dump examples with a downloadable reference file.

Explore PHP conditional statements, including if, if else, and switch statements, and see how to trigger outputs like condition met or condition not met based on x less than 50.

Use PHP else if statements to map a 0–100 score to letter grades, from F to A plus. Build and test the grading logic with if, else if, and else.

Practice implementing a switch statement that compares an expression against cases like Volvo, BMW, and Honda, executing the matching block or a default message when none match.

Learn how while, do while, for, and foreach loops run code blocks, control flow with conditions, and use increment operators to produce repeated outputs in PHP foundations.

Explore php for loops and foreach loops, learn when to use a for loop with its three-parameter syntax, and see Volvo, BMW, Honda, and Ford output with foreach.

Explore PHP functions with default parameters and the return statement. See how a default 30 outputs when not supplied, and how x plus y returns 3, 7, and 10.

Explore PHP arrays, including indexed, associative, and multidimensional types, with examples like colors and a test score. Learn to output values with echo, count, and loop with for and foreach.

Build a PHP multi dimensional array of students with two test scores and learn to access values by index numbers, outputting each student's scores.

Explore PHP superglobal variables and how server globals expose headers, paths, and script locations. Access request, post, and get data in PHP examples.

Learn how PHP processes HTML form data, validates inputs on the server, and securely transmits data using post versus get methods, including form actions and key-value arrays.

Link an html form with php script and compare post and get methods; use inputs named f name and email to show post keeps data hidden while get exposes it.

Create a PHP form that outputs user input on the same page, applying a validation function with trim, stripslashes, and html special characters for security. Submit via post.

Enforce form validation in PHP by requiring name and website fields, using the empty function to trigger errors, displaying red messages, and outputting user data only when fields are filled.

Apply continued PHP validation by testing input against patterns, ensuring names contain only letters and spaces and websites follow the correct format, then verify errors and successful submission.